• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.52
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• pp.143-170
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• 2003

This study investigated the effectiveness of the assessment of psychosocial treatment outcome in symptomatology and social functioning as rated by the depressed client's significant other in explaining the client's symptomatology and social adjustment at 6 and 12 month follow-up period after the 16-week psychosocial treatment was terminated. The data were drawn from the National Institute of Mental Health Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program of the U.S. Significant others of depressed clients have rarely participated in the assessment of treatment outcome, although they are major participants of the clients' daily life and have meaningful opportunities to observe the clients' functioning in different social situations. Thus, this study aimed to examine the explanatory power of the significant others' outcome assessment in depressive symptomatology and social functioning for the long-term outcome in symptomatology and social adjustment. The outcome measures used by the significant others were actual performance, expected performance, gap between actual and expected performance, and symptomatology drawn from the Katz Adjustment Scale-Relatives Form. Three major findings were: (1) in general, the posttreatment assessment by the significant other demonstrated stronger explanatory power of the follow-up status than the assessment rated at pretreatment in all of the four outcome domains; (2) the significant other's assessment of actual and expected performance at both pre- and posttreatment demonstrated significant explanatory power of the follow-up status in symptomatology and social/leisure and work adjustment; and (3) the significant other's assessment of social functioning at pretreatment improved the explanatory power over and above the explanation by symptomatology in the follow-up status of social/leisure and work adjustment; however, at posttreatment, symptomatology improved the explanation over and above social functioning more frequently in predicting both symptomatology and social/leisure and work adjustment. These findings suggest the effectiveness of the measures of symptomatology and actual and expected performance as assessed by significant others. The results imply that mental health professionals and researchers need to involve the depressed client's significant other in the treatment and make good use of their contribution in treatment planning and further intervention in the follow-up period to prevent relapse.