Short-term effectiveness of psychotherapy treatments delivered at a university counselling service

ABSTRACT

This work aimed to evaluate the short-term effectiveness of psychotherapy delivered at the counselling service of the University of Bologna (Italy), by means of a single group longitudinal study including a 6-months follow-up. To this end, sixty-six students completed the 6-months follow-up and filled in the Symptom Questionnaire (SQ) three times, during the first and the last session of the psychotherapy, and 6 months after its conclusion. The majority of students presented a problem concerning mood (n = 35; 53.03%); students completed a programme of psychodynamic therapy (n = 38, 57.58%) or cognitive-behavioural therapy (n = 28, 42.42%). With reference to 10 out of 12 SQ dimensions, significant improvements were observed both after therapy and at the 6-months follow-up, in comparison to pre-treatment; furthermore no significant differences were observed between the end of psychotherapy and the follow-up. The present data indicate the effectiveness of the therapy in reducing students’ distress at the end of treatment and also in the short-term.

KEYWORDS:

• Follow-up
• short-term effectiveness
• student counselling
• symptom questionnaire
• university students

Acknowledgements

All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest and no financial interest or benefit they have arising from the direct applications of their research. This study was presented as a poster communication during the 10th national meeting of the Society for Psychotherapy Research-Italy Area Group, held in Padua (Italy) from 12 to 14 September 2014.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Fiorella Monti is Full Professor of Psychology at the University of Bologna. She is the clinical manager of the counselling service for students of the University of Bologna.

Lorenzo Tonetti has obtained his PhD in General and Clinical Psychology from the University of Bologna. He is a temporary research fellow at the University of Bologna.

Pio Enrico Ricci Bitti is Full Professor of Psychology at the University of Bologna. He is the head of the counselling service for students of the University of Bologna.

Notes

1. In the present paper the terms ‘counselling' and ‘psychotherapy' are considered as interchangeable.

Additional information

Funding

The counselling service for students of the University of Bologna receives a grant from the ‘Azienda USL Città di Bologna’ and from the University of Bologna.