Marianne Welmers

Chapter 2 48 Moderator analyses on alliance change scores and outcome correlation Results of the moderator analyses on the association between alliance change scores and outcome are depicted in Table 6. Categorical variables with data for only one category, continuous variables with data on less than one third of effect sizes in the total sample, and variables with data for only one study were excluded from analyses. Alliance characteristics. There was a significant moderating effect for alliance rater, with stronger correlations between alliance improvement and outcome for youth informed alliance improvement than for therapist or parent informed alliance improvement. There was no moderating effect for type of alliance. Treatment characteristics. A significant moderating effect was found for treatment model, with higher correlations between alliance improvement and outcome for Family Based CBT compared to MST and other forms of family-involved treatment. There was no moderating effect for treatment setting. Sample Characteristics. Problem type was a significant moderator: correlations between alliance improvement and outcome were higher for families in treatment for internalizing problems of their children and for multi-problem families compared to families receiving treatment for externalizing problems of their children. Referral source was also a significant moderator, with higher correlations between alliance improvement and outcome for help-seeking or recruited clients than for clients mandated for treatment or populations with mandated as well as help-seeking clients. Furthermore, percentage of male adults within the study sample was a significant moderator, demonstrating higher correlations between alliance change and outcome within samples with a higher percentage of male adults. There were no significant moderating effects for outcome characteristics or for study quality . Analyses of Publication Bias In order to investigate whether publication bias might have distorted the results of our meta-analyses, we applied two methods. Table 3 shows the results of the Egger regression test for each analyzed association. The association between level of alliance and outcome and the association between alliance change scores and outcome showed significant Egger regression tests, indicating funnel plot asymmetry. The funnel plots showing the results of the trim and fill procedure are depicted in Figures 2, 3, and 4. Both trim and fill plots for the level of alliance – outcome association and the alliance change scores – outcome association show missing