Psychological mindedness, work, and outcome in day treatment.

A recently completed clinical trial that investigated the effectiveness of a group-oriented, day treatment program provided an opportunity to pursue a multidimensional approach to the prediction of treatment outcome. The sample consisted of 99 psychiatric outpatients, most of whom had received diagnoses of affective and personality disorders. The predictor variables included a patient personality characteristic (psychological mindedness), a group process variable (patient work), and their interaction. Univariate analyses revealed significant direct relationships between psychological mindedness and both work and favorable outcome, and between work and favorable outcome. Multivariate analyses indicated that psychological mindedness and work had independent significant relationships (additive or interactive) with several of the outcome variables. In combination they accounted for up to a quarter of the outcome variance. The results demonstrate the benefit of using a theoretically consistent multidimensional approach. The time-efficient nature of the predictor measures used in the study make them particularly amenable for use by clinicians and researchers.