GOAL ATTAINMENT SCALING - AN IDIOSYNCRATIC METHOD TO ASSESS TREATMENTEFFECTIVENESS IN AGORAPHOBIA

Goal attainment scaling (GAS) is an individually tailored way to measu re treatment gains, using a highly standardized procedure. An advantag e of the method is that it takes into account individual characteristi cs of the patients, and at the same time the data are suitable for qua ntitative analysis and comparable across patients. Despite the wide ac ceptance and use of the method in the evaluation of psychotherapy, dat a on its psychometric properties are rather scarce. In the current stu dy, GAS was used as one of several outcome measures in a research proj ect on the effectiveness of various treatments for panic disorder with agoraphobia. Guidelines for GAS are presented as well as data on the reliability and validity of the procedure. Results indicate that the p rocedure is reliable, valid, and sensitive to the improvement of patie nts during treatment. Comparison of GAS with standardized measures rev ealed considerable concordance, although the clinical end status of pa tients diverged somewhat dependent on the measure considered.