Development and Initial Validation of the in-Session Patient Affective Reactions Questionnaire (SPARQ) and the Rift In-Session Questionnaire (RISQ)

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Creator
  • Stefana A.
    • Other Affiliation: University of Pavia
  • Langfus J.A.
    • Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
  • Vieta E.
    • Other Affiliation: University of Barcelona
  • Fusar-Poli P.
    • Other Affiliation: King’s College London
  • Youngstrom E.A.
    • Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
Abstract
  • This article discusses the development and preliminary validation of a self-report inventory of the patient’s perception of, and affective reaction to, their therapist during a psychotherapy session. First, we wrote a pool of 131 items, reviewed them based on subject matter experts’ review, and then collected validation data from a clinical sample of adult patients in individual therapy (N = 701). We used exploratory factor analysis and item response theory graded response models to select items, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test the factor structure, and k-fold cross-validation to verify model robustness. Multi-group CFA examined measurement invariance across patients with different diagnoses (unipolar depression, bipolar disorder, and neither of these). Three factors produced short scales retaining the strongest items. The in-Session Patient Affective Reactions Questionnaire (SPARQ) has a two-factor structure, yielding a four-item Negative affect scale and a four-item Positive affect scale. The Relationship In-Session Questionnaire (RISQ) is composed of four items from the third factor with dichotomized responses. Both scales showed excellent psychometric properties and evidence of metric invariance across the three diagnostic groups: unipolar depression, bipolar disorder, and neither of these. The SPARQ and the RISQ scale can be used in clinical or research settings, with particular value for capturing the patient’s perspectives about their therapist and session-level emotional processes.
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  • Article
License
  • Attribution 4.0 International
Journal title
  • Journal of Clinical Medicine
Journal volume
  • 12
Journal issue
  • 15
Language
  • English
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  • Publisher
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  • Eligibility criteria were being 18 years or older, fluent in English, and currently engaged in individual psychotherapy treatment for a diagnosed mental disorder. Participants meeting the study criteria were recruited via two online patient registers (i.e., ResearchMatch and Research for Me) from March through April 2022. ResearchMatch is a disease- and institution-neutral, United States national registry to recruit volunteers for clinical research [] created by several academic institutions and funded in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). Research for Me is a community of volunteers that serves as the central entry point for patients and community members interested in engaging with research at UNC
  • it was created by the North Carolina Translational & Clinical Sciences Institute (NC TraCS), the integrated hub of the NIH CTSA program at UNC-CH. Evidence indicates that participants recruited through online research platforms are consistent in their self-reported demographic and psychological information, and do not use deception when not financially incentivized []. Participants completed an anonymous online survey on Qualtrics, which lasted an average of 15 min.
ISSN
  • 2077-0383
Publisher
  • Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI)

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