Target complaints as a measure of outcome in psychotherapy with the depressed elderly

Researchers have attempted to systematize measurement of patients' goals for therapy and the outcome of therapy. Traditionally, outcome measures in psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy studies have used symptom measures closely tied to the criteria for the psychiatric entity being studied (e.g. Major Depressive Disorder). In this study "target complaints" (the specific problems for which the patient is seeking help in therapy) were elicited from 78 outpatients between the ages of 59 and 80 with an uncomplicated diagnosis of unipolar Major Depressive Disorder. Significant results were found using the Target Complaint (TC) measure for time but not for treatment modality, age, gender or health status. In addition, target complaint change was correlated with BDI change from pre- to post-treatment to examine the extent to which traditional self-report symptom measures of depression and Target Complaint ratings, in general, measure similar amounts of change in similar directions. Positive correlation's between post-treatment TC severity scores and post-treatment BDI scores were evident (r's = .50--.55) and 19--25% of the variance in post-treatment BDI scores was found to be accounted for by post-treatment TC scores when pre-treatment BDI scores were partialled out.