Utility of therapist session checklists to monitor delivery of coping skills treatment for cocaine abusers

Manual-based psychotherapy process rating systems, such as the Collaborative Study Psychotherapy Rating Scale (CSPRS), are a valuable method of assessing treatment integrity and discriminability. However, because the rating systems are time consuming and labor intensive, only limited samples of sessions are typically rated. In this report, we provide preliminary data on the utility of therapist self-report session checklists, modeled on the CSPRS system, as a strategy for monitoring delivery of manual-specified interventions. The poor levels of concordance between therapist and observer ratings suggest that therapist session reports may be a supplement to, but not substitute for, observer ratings. Recommendations are made for improving therapist accuracy of reporting on the interventions they deliver. If improvements to the therapist checklist system are validated in future research, this method may have several applications in psychotherapy process research.