Tutkimus päihdehuollon terapeuttien arvioinnissa käytettävistä menetelmistä

Service users' views on service production are nowadays considered essential. However, not much is known about these evaluative processes in the treatment of substance abuse. This study includes two experiments and a qualitative analysis of therapists' (N=4) written responses to client situations which were used as basic materia! in the experiments. The first experiment focused on the therapists' ability to feel empathy, their genuineness, their respect for the client and their concreteness. In the second experiment, the raters put the therapists in order of preference. The qualitative analysis showed that the therapists' written responses differed from one another in length and style. However, they were thematically similar. To some extent the results of the experiments converged: The two most popular therapists were the same in both experiments. The therapist who got the highest scores wrote the longest responses and the one who got the lowest scores wrote the shortest responses. The length of the responses had a connection with the length of the therapist's work experience: The longer the experience, the shorter the responses, though the more concise. The age of the raters had no connection with the results. Gender had some impact in the first experiment. Combining these rating methods with an analysis of outcome and continuity of substance abuse treatment would be an interesting theme for a further study.