The effects of psychotherapies: A study on patients' perception of resultsin an Italian public setting

Enquiries centred on the perspective of users of psychiatric treatments and their families, has become an increasingly widespread method to improve th e quality of treatments administered by health services. In this study, in particular, we examine the users' perception of the quality and variability of the effects of psychotherapies, the difficulties met, and the perceived help factors. The sample consists of 216 users of psychotherapy and 223 patients in psych iatric treatment with psychological support. They are outpatients, managed by the public health service. The questionnaires included closed ended, ope n-ended questions and scales that were previously tested on a sample of pat ients. The questionnaire for patients was anonymous and administered by res earchers external to the medical staff. Irrespective of the diagnosis or of a concurrent pharmacological therapy, a high percentage of patients (75%), in both groups, feel improved. Improvem ent consist of the decrease of symptoms, a sense of feeling better, but als o feeling grown up, more mature, having higher self-esteem and feeling more adequate in interpersonal relationships. This last type of result is signi ficantly more frequent in the group of patients in psychotherapy. Besides t hese patients are faced with more difficulties and play more active a role while they are in treatment. The main difference between patients in psychotherapy and those in psychiat ric management with psychological support is not indeed the identification of different perceived therapeutic factors, but rather the different evalua tion of their relative importance. On the whole, the study seems to show that the effects of real psychotherap ies include, beside an improvement of symptoms, the achievement of goals of personal growth and maturity, self-satisfaction and an increase in self-es teem, all in accordance with a conception of health as well-being and self- satisfaction rather than as absence of illness.