Web-based Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for symptoms of anxiety and depression: Within-group effect size benchmarks as tools for clinical practice.

COVID-19 has highlighted the need for evidence-based behavioural health interventions that can be delivered remotely. This article provides within-group effect size benchmarks for randomised controlled trials of Internet-based Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for the treatment of adults with anxiety and depression. Effect sizes were calculated using the Glass approach, adjusted using Hedges g, then aggregated to produce separate benchmarks for measures of anxiety and depression. These benchmarks can be used by community-based treatment providers to evaluate the effectiveness of their web-based Acceptance and Commitment Therapy intervention to determine if it should be continued, modified for the unique needs of their client population and practice setting, or discontinued.

A longitudinal study of the stress-buffering effect of social support on postpartum depression: a structural equation modeling approach.

PURPOSE: Postpartum depression (PPD) impacts about one out of eight new mothers. Research has demonstrated that social support is a protector of PPD. Nevertheless, there has been disagreement on how social support influences depression. The objective is to test two theories - main-effect theory and stress-buffering theory of social support on PPD with different definitions of stress and two types of social support. METHODS: Secondary longitudinal data from the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect were used. Parenting stress and difficult life circumstances (DLC) measured at six-month postpartum was used to predict the changes in depression from six- to 12-month postpartum; social support at six-month postpartum was conceptualized as a moderator between stress and PPD. Structural Equation Modeling was adopted for the longitudinal analyses. RESULTS: DLC and parental distress both showed long-lasting impacts on PPD. Social support was not found to have a direct or indirect effect on PPD. Neither the stress-buffering theory nor the main-effect model was endorsed by this study. CONCLUSION: Interventions that are accessible to new mothers and aim to improve self-efficacy are recommended. Measures with higher psychometric quality should be used in moderation research. More longitudinal studies with shorter lags between measurement occasions are warranted.

Can Family Caregivers Provide Life Review to Reduce Depression in Older Adults With Dementia?

Life review (LR) therapy has received considerable support as an effective treatment for depression among older adults. Researchers believe that providing LR does not require extensive training and can be done by family members who are not psychiatric professionals. If so, then training family caregivers to provide LR is a potential strategy for alleviating the shortage of resources for treating depression among the growing population of older adults experiencing depression. A pilot study that explored the feasibility of that strategy had mixed results. Seventeen (89%) of 19 caregiver-care recipient dyads completed the current study, and caregivers provided the LR with self-reported fidelity. However, there was lack of statistically significant improvement in this convenience sample. Implications are provided for future assessments of this strategy with a larger study of caregiver and care recipient dyads. [Journal of Gerontological Nursing, 46(2), 41-48.].

Benchmarks for Evaluating Life Review and Reminiscence Therapy in Alleviating Depression among Older Adults.

The efficacy of reminiscence and life review (LR) therapy in alleviating depression among older adults is well established. However, providers in nonresearch settings might implement these interventions inadequately, and such settings rarely can evaluate their outcomes using control groups. Alternatively, evaluators in such settings can calculate a within-group effect size and then compare it with average within-group effect size benchmarks derived from the randomized clinical trials (RCTs) supporting the intervention's effectiveness. This study developed these within-group effect size benchmarks. A search of RCTs from five systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and more recent RCTs published through 2016, yielded 25 studies that met inclusion criteria. Hedge's g for LR recipients and waitlist controls were .598 and -.20, respectively, and .568 and -.012 for reminiscence theory. These benchmarks offer an approach for evaluating the implementation of LR and reminiscence therapy when control groups are infeasible.

A Practitioner-Friendly Empirical Way to Evaluate Practice.

Social work practitioners and the agencies that employ them have long been concerned with how best to evaluate whether the interventions that they adopt are being provided appropriately or with desired outcomes. The realities of practice in everyday service provision settings, however, make it difficult to use well-controlled research designs for evaluation purposes in such settings-especially designs involving the use of control groups. The purpose of this article is to provide practitioners in those settings with a new, feasible way to evaluate practice and yield approximate empirical findings that can inform practice decisions despite the absence of a control group. The key feature of this new approach involves the use of within-group effect size benchmarks.

Bridging the gap between research-supported interventions and everyday social work practice: a new approach.

This article describes a rationale for a focus on case studies that would provide a database of single-group pre-post mean effect sizes that could be analyzed to identify which service provision characteristics are associated with more desirable outcomes when interventions supported by randomized clinical trials are adapted in everyday practice settings. In addition, meta-analyses are proposed that would provide benchmarks that agency practitioners could compare with their mean effect size to inform their decisions about whether to continue, modify, or replace existing efforts to adopt or adapt a specific research-supported treatment. Social workers should be at the forefront of the recommended studies in light of the profession's emphasis on applied research in real-world settings and the prominence of social work practitioners in such settings.

Social workers' orientations toward the evidence-based practice process: a comparison with psychologists and licensed marriage and family therapists.

This article describes the results from a large, cross-sectional survey of social workers, psychologists, and licensed marriage and family therapists (LMFTs) in Texas (N = 865) regarding their orientation toward and implementation of evidence-based practice (EBP). All social workers were recruited by e-mail using the state NASW Listserv (analysis was limited to master's level social workers), whereas 500 psychologists and LMFTs were randomly selected from the state licensing lists for a postal mail survey. The Evidence-Based Practice Process Assessment Scale-Short Version was used, along with 10 background/ demographic questions. Psychologists with doctoral degrees reported, on average, stronger orientations toward the EBP process than did social workers with master's degrees, but the effect sizes for these differences were typically weak to moderate. Social workers and LMFTs were, for most comparisons, similar in their orientations toward the EBP process. More recent social work graduates had more favorable views of the EBP process than less recent graduates. The results suggest that although the EBP process is not yet widely implemented in its entirety, there are grounds for optimism about master's level social workers' engagement in that process and for their increased utilization of research.

Comparing social worker and non-social worker outcomes: a research review.

This article reports on a review of the literature comparing the outcomes of social workers with those of non-social workers. The review was commissioned by NASW's Texas Chapter to examine empirical evidence regarding the comparative effectiveness of social work to possibly support efforts to educate employers and the public about the value of social work. Because of the limited number of internally valid studies that have compared social workers and non-social workers on actual client outcomes, studies were also included if they examined practitioner variables that might be associated with client outcomes. The mixed findings point to a lack of compelling evidence supporting the superiority of social work in the child welfare field. However, in the mental health and aging fields, the limited evidence suggests that social workers do at least as well as non-social workers regarding practitioner retention, mental health court intervention, efforts to maintain older adult independence in the community, and attitudes toward evidence-based practice. Implications are presented to guide NASW in promoting rigorous research comparing social workers and non-social workers on actual client outcomes, especially in the field of child welfare.

Bridges to life: evaluation of an in-prison restorative justice intervention.

Restorative justice initiatives have been identified as primarily, if not exclusively, useful as a "front-end" diversionary option reserved for non violent property crimes and minor assaults. In-prison restorative justice programs are rare and have not been examined for their impact on recidivism. Bridges to Life (BTL) is a voluntary, manualized, ecumenical faith-based restorative justice program offered to incarcerated offenders who are within nine months of their release. A survey of BTL graduates (n=1021) found an appreciatively lower recidivism rate than the general population of released inmates. Quantitative and qualitative analyses suggest that BTL helps break through offenders' denial and self-centeredness, exposing them to the impact of their actions and helping them feel the pain their crimes created. Possible reasons for the positive nature of participants' responses are advanced. The use of in-prison restorative justice programs to facilitate offender re-entry is also discussed.

Assessing the long-term effects of EMDR: results from an 18-month follow-up study with adult female survivors of CSA.

This 18-month follow-up study builds on the findings of a randomized experimental evaluation that found qualified support for the short-term effectiveness of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) in reducing trauma symptoms among adult female survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). The current study provides preliminary evidence that the therapeutic benefits of EMDR for adult female survivors of CSA can be maintained over an 18-month period. Furthermore, there is some support for the suggestion that EMDR did so more efficiently and provided a greater sense of trauma resolution than did routine individual therapy.

Gender differences in dually-diagnosed clients receiving chemical dependency treatment.

This article considers gender differences among 97 clients with dual diagnoses of severe mental illness and chemical dependency (46 male and 51 female). Comparisons are made at the time of their admission to an inpatient chemical dependency treatment program and at follow-up in cases where data are available. Many of the findings at time of admission are consistent with the few studies that have compared men and women with co-occurring mental and substance use disorders. For example, the women were more likely to have experienced emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, and they reported being charged with fewer types of crimes. Most differences at admission concerned psychiatric problems and family/social relations. Women reported that they were more bothered by their psychiatric symptoms and their family/social relations, but they also reported more happiness and closeness in some relationships. The women also said they had more relatives with alcohol, drug, and especially psychiatric, problems. At follow-up, gender differences in the family/social and psychiatric domains persisted. Findings suggest that men and women with dual diagnoses might benefit from different emphases in treatment programs.