Individual Goal Attainment Scaling after group therapy “SAVE�. Measurement of therapy success for adolescents with ADHD

Abstract

Adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are severely impaired in routine daily activities in the same way as adults. Therapy programs focus on improving everyday behavior. Goal attainment scaling (GAS) has already proven to be a suitable instrument for assessing treatment success with adult ADHD patients.

Material and methods. Goal attainment scaling was used in addition to standardized self-evaluation of core symptoms of ADHD in 49 adolescents aged 12-18 years old with a mean age of 14.14 years (standard deviation SD±1.59 years) with ADHD to operationalize treatment success of the cognitive behavior group therapy program SAVE. Behavior-oriented aims and criteria for target achievement were set. To examine treatment success changes were assessed at different time points (10 weeks before treatment, process evaluation during treatment and after treatment).

Results. The adolescents in this study were able to define relevant goals together with the therapists. They focused on goals concerning organization of everyday life, attention, distraction and power of endurance. Goals were reached from the beginning of the study to post-evaluation, even before SAVE started, with great effects (d=1.85). Adolescents evaluated changes in symptoms during the course of the SAVE program in general (d=0.47) and attention deficits (d=0.45) as having significant effects. The reduction in symptoms (attention) was only moderately correlated with the target achievement.

Conclusion. The GAS method has been proven to be a practical instrument to assess treatment success for adolescents with ADHD. Further studies in a controlled design should focus on assessment of the influence of GAS as an intervention method.