![Sample our Health and Social Care journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5938/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Health-Social-Care.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Despite the growing popularity of brief group interventions (weekend workshops, sexuality attitude reassessment seminars, and other formats) since the 1960s, there is a paucity of evaluative evidence as to their effectiveness. An abundance of anecdotal testimony suggests these interventions may have powerful and lasting impact on individual participants. The related scientific investigations on attitudinal change and group dynamics, in contexts outside the field of sexual health, offer many reasons to support the proposition that brief group interventions in this field, if conducted with an attentiveness to the many factors that can influence outcome, could be highly efficacious. Five programmatic suggestions are offered to guide future outcome studies. These include proposals concerning the need for collaboration, for improved qualitative as well as quantitative methods, for longitudinal designs, for the use of technology, and for the content of evaluative measures that assess effectiveness.
Barnaby B. Barratt, PhD, DHS is in private practice and teaches at the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, the International University for Professional Studies, Northcentral University, Pacifica Graduate Institute, and Prescott College.
For their advice and support in the preparation of this article, the author thanks Eli Coleman, Wayne Pawlowski, Michael Plaut, Marsha Rand, Howard Ruppel, Justin Sitron, and Bill Stayton, as well as all the other colleagues who responded to his informal survey of current intervention and research practices.