Feedback-informed treatment in emergency psychiatry; a randomised controlled trial

BACKGROUND: Immediate patient feedback has been shown to improve outcomes for patients in mild distress but it is unclear whether psychiatric patients in severe distress benefit equally from feedback. This study investigates the efficacy of an immediate feedback instrument in the treatment of patients with acute and severe psychosocial or psychiatric problems referred in the middle of a crisis. METHODS: A naturalistic mixed diagnosis sample of patients (N = 370) at a Psychiatric Emergency Centre was randomised to a Treatment-as-Usual (TAU) or a Feedback (FB) condition. In the FB condition, feedback on patient progress was provided on a session-by-session basis to both therapists and patients. Outcomes of the two treatment conditions were compared using repeated measures MANCOVA, Last Observation Carried Forward and multilevel analysis. RESULTS: After 3 months, symptom improvement in FB (ES 0.60) did not significantly differ from TAU (ES 0.71) (p = 0.505). After 6 weeks, FB patients (ES 0.31) actually improved less than TAU patients (0.56) (p = 0.019). CONCLUSIONS: Patients with psychiatric problems and severe distress seeking emergency psychiatric help did not benefit from direct feedback. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Dutch Trial Register, NTR3168, date of registration 1-9-2009 ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12888-016-0811-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.