Therapeutenmerkmale und Therapieabbruch

Background: Previous research studies have shown inconsistent findings regarding the effects of therapist characteristics on therapy termination (drop-out). There is also a lack of comparable operationalization of drop-outs. Objectives: The aim of this review was to identify important therapist characteristics that influence therapy termination. Furthermore. the operationalization of drop-out in the last 20 years was investigated. Material and method: A literature search was conducted via PsycARTICLES, PsycINFO, PSYNDEX and OVID Medline. The operationalization of drop-out, drop-out rates, therapist characteristics and survey tools used were extracted. The risk of bias of the studies was assessed via the quality in prognostic studies (QUIPS) tool. Results: A total of 23 relevant studies, which included a total of 20,034 patients and 1826 therapists, could be identified. Age, gender and therapeutic experience had no effect on drop-out. Some studies showed an influence of ethnic and cultural variables. There has been little research on psychological therapist variables, such as personality traits. The results concerning these effects cannot be conclusively assessed. A standard operationalization of premature termination of therapy does not exist. Conclusion: For future investigations it is recommended that a more comprehensive selection of predictors should be included and therapist, patient and process variables should be taken into account. In addition, one form of operationalization of therapy termination should not be stipulated but several forms of how drop-out is assessed should be simultaneously applied. Hence, the effects of the operationalization on the results can be examined in sensitivity analyses.