Problem
Case Study
Steven is a Licensed Professional Counselor who works for a community mental health center providing a psychoeducation group on stress management and anxiety reduction. The goals of the program are for members to increase coping strategies for daily life stressors and reduce their current level of anxiety. Steven holds weekly psychotherapy group meetings on Wednesdays at noon in a conference room at the mental health center. The therapy group is a closed group that runs continuously in 8-week intervals. Clients are referred to the group by therapists, physicians, and clergy. Inclusion criteria to participate in the group include formal referral and a Beck Anxiety Inventory Score of 22 or higher.
In an effort to determine whether the services are meeting the needs of the clients, Steven has conducted a Program Evaluation and collected pre- and post-test program data from three sets of group participants. His findings will be used to determine renewal of his program. Analyze the following quantitative and qualitative data and determine whether enough evidence exists to rule the program as effective and make one recommendation regarding the future of the program.
1) What trends to you observe when you compare the quantitative data with the qualitative data?
2) Based on the information provided, was the intervention effective for reducing anxiety? Why or why not? What was the most critical data that informed your decision?
3) Based on your data analysis, describe one recommendation that you would make for the design of the intervention program going forward and explain your rationale.(An improvement for the therapy group, not the program.)