Adsson Magalhães1; Katie Treu2; Maria Martha Hübner3.

1. PhD Student – Experimental Psychology Department, Institute of Psychology, University of São Paulo. 2. Master Student – Universidad Veracruziana.

3. Associate Professor – Experimental Psychology Department, Institute of Psychology, University of São Paulo.

contatc: adsson.magalhaes@usp.br

                   The Functional Analytical Psychotherapy (Kohlenberg & Tsai, 2001) has been widely used by therapists, because is possible identify the variables that influences on development and maintenance of client behaviors, besides allow create new contingences, making easier the changes on frequency and structure of behaviors that have been considered as problems. Mood scales, anxiety and quality of life are the most used as evaluation of behavior therapy (BT). Even though, just a few studies have investigated correlations between the questionnaires and therapy. We also didn’t find any longitudinal study in BT that assess the evolution of therapeutic process, so the relevance of this research is about the possibility to investigate behavior changes of clients who were attended by psychologists in a BT graduation course at University Hospital at University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. According to Spring (2007), Psychology was one of the last disciplines in health field to adopt the evidence-based, a process of clinical decision-making that integrates research evidence, clinical expertise, and patient preferences and characteristics. Is a transdisciplinary, idiographic approach that promotes lifelong learning. Develop research in Behavior Analysis has aimed in a medium and long term sustain the psychotherapy evidence-based practice.

1 PARTICIPANTS Nine patients (mean age = 34.8, SD=9.8) were selected to be part of this research. However, just five of the patients could be able to fill the two steps of ASR/ABCL inventories. 2 PROCEIDURES Every subjects were evaluated periodically each four sessions. At baseline level, they were requested to answer an short interview, the BDI (Beck Depression Inventory), the BAI (Beck Anxiety Inventory), o GHQ-12 (Goldberg General Health), the WHOQOL-brief and ASR/ABCL inventories (Adult Self-Resport and Adult Behavior Check-List). The following evaluations, aside the interview, all the scales were answered. On this poster, the results show just the baseline and last session evaluations. 3 INSTRUMENTS 3.1 BDI Beck Depression Inventory (Beck et. al , 1961), is a self report scale to assess depression symptoms according the DSM-IV. Made by 21 questions, is scored between 0 and 63. The cut-point to Brazilian culture was established by Cunha (2001) as: minimum depression (0-11 points), average (20-35) and severe (36-63). 3.2 BAI Beck Anxietxy Inventory was developed by Beck et al. (1988a) to measure anxiety in a way to differentiate of depression. Like BDI, the scale is made of 21 items, that score between 0 and 63. The Brazilian cut-point was also established by Cunha (2001) as minimum anxiety (0-10), low (11-19), moderate (20-30) and severe (31-63).

3.3 WHOQOL-brief The WHOQOL quality of life assessment was developed by the WHOQOL Group with an attempt to develop a quality of life assessment that would be applicable cross-culturally. With 26 questions, the instrument has four domains: physical health, psychological, social relationships and environment. Is scored between 0 and 100 (Skevington et al., 2004). 3.4 GHQ The General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) was developed by Goldberg (1972). It is considered one of the main instruments to assess different dimensions of health, and has been used in all kind of populations. The Brazilian validation was made by Pasquali et al. (1994). The short version (12 items), is widely used to measure a psychological well-being and is scored between 0 and 12 (cut-point: 3). 3.5 ASR/ABCL ASR and ABCL are part of ASEBA (Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment) (Achenbach, 2009). The ASR is a 126 questions self report of the adult about his own behavior related to adaptive functioning, behavior problems and substance use. To be more complete, the authors recommend the use of ABCL, the almost same structure of ASR inventory, but filled by someone else who knows the adult, like relatives, partners or friends. Both are screening instruments that can be used to measure effects of treatments. The Brazilian version is being validated by Silvares (2011).

The Figure 1 shows the mean of each one of WHOQOL-brief domains at baseline and post-FAP therapy levels. Despite the decreasing of physical health, we can see an improvement on psychological, social, environment and also on general domains of quality of life. As higher the score, better the quality of life. Figure 1. Mean scores of each domain of WHOQOL-brief

questionnaire at baseline and at the end of treatment with Functional Analysis Psychotherapy.

The second and third graphics (Figures 2 and 3) show the results of Adult Self-Report and Adult Behavior Check-List. The Total Problems (Figure 2) is referred as the amount of problems marked in the whole questionnaire. Is possible noted a decrease in both means (client responding by itself and someone else’s perception about its behavior). Critical Problems (Figure 3) is about clinical or severe symptoms that need attention/intervention.

Figure 2. Mean scores of Total Problems of Adult Self-Report and Adult Behavior Check-List inventories at baseline and at the end of treatment with Functional Analysis Psychotherapy

Figure 3. Mean scores of Critical Items of Adult Self-Report and Adult Behavior Check-List questionnaire at baseline and at

the end of treatment with Functional Analysis Psychotherapy

By looking at the Figure 4, is possible describe how the symptoms of Depression (BDI) and Anxiety (BAI) have decreased at the end of FAP. The General Health Questionnaire also shows an improvement in aspects of health, wich match with the results of WHOQOL (Figure 1).

Figure 4. Mean scores of Beck Inventories for Depression (BDI) and Anxiety (BAI), and the General Health Questionnaire

at baseline and at the end of treatment with Functional Analysis Psychotherapy.

Is important to highlight that even with a small number of participants, the means and scores show us that the FAP improve aspects of quality of life and decrease depression, anxiety and clinical symptoms. It was possible either increase the conversation with other fields, like Psychiatry, and indicate that the verbal behaviors shown when somebody fill a scale can have coherent relations with the progress observed in therapeutic process. This study was very important to reveal the challenge that is evidence the efficacy of behavior therapy in Brazil is only beginning.

SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: We’d like to say very thanks to people who were so important on development of that research and could not be part of the present poster. Prof. Dr. Renerio Fraguas Jr., who helped in leading the research at University Hospital, Maira Pinto, Master’s student of Universidad Veracruzana for helping the data collection during her interchange in Brazil

and Profa. Dra. Edwiges Silvares who gently allowed our researches access to her Laboratory at USP to correct the ASR/ABCL instruments.

INSTITUTO DE PSICOLOGIA www.ip.usp.br

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