Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Rory A. Pfund

Date

2019

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Psychology

Committee Chair

James Whelan

Abstract

The dose-response relation is a well-established finding in the general psychotherapy literature. Investigators from this literature define the dose-response relation as how much face-to-face treatment is needed to realize a statistically reliable improvement in psychological symptoms. However, there is presently mixed evidence on the presence of a dose-response relation in the literature on face-to-face psychological treatment for gambling disorder. In the present study, meta-regression was employed to synthesize results from past studies on the efficacy of psychological treatment for gambling disorder to determine the possible presence of a dose-response relation in those treatments. The hypothesis was that there was no dose-response relation in face-to-face psychological treatments for gambling disorder. This meta-analysis included 8 studies representing varying treatment doses and 592 clients. Across the 8 studies, the results of a meta-regression indicated that there was a dose-response relation in psychological treatments for gambling disorder. The results suggest that clinicians should retain clients in these treatments as long as possible to maximize therapeutic benefit. Future research would benefit from high-quality randomized controlled trials designed to test treatment efficacy at doses larger than six sessions.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest

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