Evaluating the Adverse Effects in Psychotherapy questionnaire
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Evaluating the Adverse Effects in Psychotherapy Questionnaire: A Qualitative Study
IRAS ID
365407
Contact name
Peter Taylor
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Manchester
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 5 months, 30 days
Research summary
Psychological therapies usually involve people talking about their difficulties with a therapist, to help them understand these problems and reduce the impact they have on the person’s life.
Clinical trials are research studies which can test what therapies are more helpful for different groups of people.
Although people are often helped by going to therapy, some people also might come to harm. These instances of people being harmed by their therapy are called adverse effects. These can include an increase in distress or the person’s symptoms getting worse.
This study will focus on the Adverse Effects in Psychotherapy Questionnaire. This questionnaire tries to find out whether people who have had therapy in clinical trials think that it has caused them harm.
The project will provide evidence for the questionnaire’s use and improvement. Such questionnaires are important because they give people a chance to express how therapy might have negatively impacted them.
The study will find out how well the questionnaire asks about different adverse effects. It will find out the advantages and disadvantages of the different questions, and whether any important questions might be missing from it.
The researcher will run interviews with people who have had therapy to ask about the questionnaire. The researcher will also run focus groups with clinicians (i.e. people who deliver therapy). The researcher will ask if the questionnaire contains enough questions about adverse effects and if anything should be added. The maximum number of participants will be 20.
The researcher will then analyse transcripts of these interviews and groups using thematic analysis to identify important themes in what people have said, identifying the advantages and disadvantages of the questions in the questionnaire and how the questionnaire could be improved.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - South Yorkshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
26/YH/0068
Date of REC Opinion
15 Apr 2026
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion