Brief BA for depression symptoms in adolescents: development of the Brief BA Fidelity Scale, psychometric evaluation, and link to outcome and alliance

Abstract

Brief Behavioural Activation (Brief BA) is a manualised intervention for low mood and depression in adolescents (Pass & Reynolds, 2014) shown to improve depression symptoms and functioning from pre- to post- treatment. To draw conclusions about the effectiveness of Brief BA it is important to establish therapist adherence and competence (i.e. treatment fidelity). There are currently no published measures of treatment fidelity for Behavioural Activation. In this study, a measure of Brief BA fidelity was developed, and psychometric properties were tested with 30 Brief BA cases where treatment was delivered in schools. The scale evidenced good inter-rater reliability, internal consistency, and face validity and treatment fidelity was generally high. There was a significant reduction in client self-reported depression symptoms and an increase in client self-reported functioning from pre- to post- Brief BA treatment. The relationship between session-specific Brief BA fidelity and the therapeutic alliance was not significant at the beginning or middle of treatment but was significant at the end of treatment. There was no significant relationship between Brief BA fidelity and client outcome, which may be due to lack of variance given the high rates of both fidelity and client improvement in the sample. Results suggest the Brief BA fidelity scale is a reliable and valid measure, which can be used to inform future training and supervision.

More information

Identifiers

Catalogue record

Export record