Elsevier

Behavior Therapy

Volume 19, Issue 4, Autumn 1988, Pages 539-554
Behavior Therapy

The clinical significance of treatment gains resulting from exposure-based interventions for agoraphobia: A reanalysis of outcome data**

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We reanalyzed outcome data from a series of studies investigating the efficacy of exposure-based treatments for agoraphobia. Applying statistical criteria developed by Jacobson, Follette, and Revenstorf (1984) to determine clinically significant change whenever possible, the reanalysis of 11 data sets yielded an average improvement rate across all data sets of 58%. The percentages of clinets who actually recovered in response to exposure-based treatments was considerably lower: Only 27% of the clients ended therapy with little or no residual agoraphobic behavior. Generally, the treatment gains that were made were maintained over the course of various follow-up periods. Discussion focused on methodological issues such as criteria for good outcome measures and the pros and cons of standardized versus a priori measures of clinical significance, clinical issues involving the implications of these findings, and suggestions in the literature for how to increase treatment efficacy.

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    **

    Preparation of this manuscript was supported by Grant #2 RO1 MH33838-07 from the National Institute of Mental Health, awarded to the senior author. Special thanks to all of the authors who provided data for this study. These include all of those who participated in the studies listed in Table 1.

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