Promoting Treatment Credibility

Patients’ perception of treatment credibility represents their belief about a treatment’s personal logicality, suitability, and efficaciousness. Although long considered an important common factor bearing on clinical outcome, there have been no systematic reviews of the credibility–outcome association. In this chapter, the authors first discuss the definitions of credibility and similar constructs, common measures of credibility, clinical examples of treatment credibility perception, and several landmark studies. The chapter then presents a meta-analysis of the association between patients’ credibility perception and their posttreatment outcomes. The meta-analysis was conducted on 24 independent samples with 1,504 patients. The overall weighted effect size was r = .12, or d = .24. Next, the authors present moderators and mediators of the treatment credibility–outcome link (the former in the context of the meta-analysis), evidence supporting causality in the association, patient factors contributing to their treatment credibility perception, and limitations of the research base. Finally, the chapter reviews diversity considerations, training implications, and therapeutic practices with regard to patient-perceived treatment credibility and its association with therapy outcome