Depression and education as predicting factors for completion of a behavioral medicine intervention in a mind/body medicine clinic

The authors compared characteristics of 1,012 outpatients completing a 10-w eek behavioral medicine intervention with 300 outpatients who dropped out. They administered the Symptom Checklist-90 Revised (SCL-90R) before and aft er the program. Patients who completed the treatment, compared with dropout s, tended to be more highly educated, married, and gainfully employed. Thei r pretreatment scores on the SCL-90R were significantly lower than those of the dropouts on somatization, depression, and obsessive-compulsive scales and on the global severity index. Multiple logistic regression analysis ind icated that lower depression and higher education marked the group who comp leted the intervention in contrast to the dropouts. After the intervention, all of the SCL-90R scores were significantly lower among patients who comp leted the treatment. Pre- to postintervention score changes were not signif icantly associated with the number of sessions attended The findings sugges t that the intervention had salutary effects in patients with mind/body dis tress and that its effectiveness was not diminished by a few absences. Depr essed or less educated patients might benefit from preparatory intervention s or from a modified approach to their treatment.