Treatment Satisfaction and Therapeutic Alliance in Three Different Treatment Groups for Test Anxiety

Abstract

Three group treatments for university students (N = 81) with test anxiety were compared to test if treatment satisfaction and therapeutic alliance differed between groups, while taking into account the actual reduction of test anxiety and the perceived engagement of the group as possible confounding factors. Two groups offered cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), one of them included Imagery Rescripting (CBT+ImRs; n = 30), the other relaxation techniques (CBT+R; n = 20). The third group was a therapist assisted self-help group (SH; n = 31). An covariate analysis of variance (ANCOVA) with planned contrasts, controlling for the covariates group engagement and symptom reduction, revealed that students in the CBT groups were significantly more satisfied than in the SH group (t(76) = −5.27, p = .001, r = .52). Furthermore, we could find in a second ANCOVA that the CBT+ImRs group showed higher therapeutic alliance scores compared to the CBT+R (t(78) = −2.05, p = .044, r = .23), while both CBT conditions showed higher alliance scores than the SH group (t(78) = −3.16, p = .002, r = .34).