Psychodynamic Psychotherapy with Adolescents: Endings and their Association with Sociodemographic Characteristics and Symptoms

Abstract

ABSTRACT Child and adolescent psychopathology prevalence is a topic of discussion worldwide, affecting 14% of this population globally. Psychodynamic psychotherapy is one approach for the treatment of those conditions. However, besides qualified provision of psychodynamic psychotherapy being hard to reach, dropout is also a relevant issue, occurring in up to 72% of cases. The present study aimed to assess the predictive role of sociodemographic, family, and symptom variables in relation to treatment endings (i.e. non-adherence, dropout, completion) for 747 adolescents who received psychodynamic psychotherapy, through multinomial logistic regression and binary logistic regression. Family income, source of referral, motivation, and baseline clinical complaint were significantly different among ending types. Dropout cases presented higher rule-breaking behavior and externalizing problems scores when compared to treatment completers. Patients with higher family income, motivation for treatment, and presenting internalizing symptoms were more likely to be treatment completers.