Assessing the relationship between therapeutic goal attainment and psychosocial characteristics for adolescents in crisis residence

Abstract

Background: Adolescents in need of hospitalization often present with chronic and severe forms of psychopathology, placing the adolescent or someone else in danger. Extant research is limited related to the relationship of client symptoms and diagnoses to therapeutic goal attainment.

Aims: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between therapeutic goal attainment to symptomatology for adolescents in acute care psychiatric hospitalization.

Method: Four canonical correlations were conducted utilizing the set of subscales for the Goal Attainment Scale of Stabilization (GASS) with each set of subscales for the (a) Suicide Probability Scale (SPS), (b) Target Symptom Rating (TSR), (c) Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A), and (d) Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory (MACI).

Results: A statistically significant relationship was found between GASS subscales and the TSR subscales. The first canonical root was significant, λ = 0.89, F(4, 232) = 3.55, p = 0.008, accounting for 11% (r_c = 0.33) of the overlapping variance.

Conclusions: Psychiatric symptoms appear to contribute to therapeutic goal attainment. For counselors working with adolescents in crisis residence, familiarity with client issues that promote or inhibit therapeutic progress may be helpful.

Keywords:

• Inpatient services
• adolescents
• psychological issues
• diagnosis and classification
• tests/interviews – Psychometric

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.