The Negative Effects Questionnaire: psychometric properties of an instrument for assessing negative effects in psychological treatments

“Several secondary outcome measures were also administered; the Patient Health Questionnaire – 9 items (PHQ-9; Löwe et al., 2004), the Generalized Anxiety Disorder – 7 items (GAD-7; Spitzer et al., 2006), and the Brunnsviken Brief Quality of Life Scale (BBQ; Lindner et al., 2016).”

“A similar study was conducted using Rasch analysis for the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scales (Lovibond and Lovibond, 1995), suggesting that a number of items could be removed and that it was not supported as a general instrument for mental distress (Shea et al.”

“Research on the efficacy of evidencebased approaches, such as cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT), suggest that a large number of patients improve thanks to the interventions they receive (Hofmann et al., 2012).”

“This can be helpful for identifying abnormal responses that might warrant further development of the instrument (Andrich, 1978).”

“The magnitude of DIF was evaluated using the Mantel-Haenszel statistic for polytomous scales using log-odds estimators (Mantel, 1963).”

“This converted item measure is then applied to determine whether they are scored on a similar unidimensional construct, which is often viewed as crucial in terms of validity in both classical and modern test theory (Spector, 1992).”

“It is possible that the negative effects that were reported were affected by recall bias, primacy-recency effects, and social desirability (Krosnick, 1999), resulting in less valid responses.”

“Several secondary outcome measures were also administered; the Patient Health Questionnaire – 9 items (PHQ-9; Löwe et al., 2004), the Generalized Anxiety Disorder – 7 items (GAD-7; Spitzer et al., 2006), and the Brunnsviken Brief Quality of Life Scale (BBQ; Lindner et al., 2016).”

“Psychological treatments can provide patients with effective means of overcoming mental distress and increasing their well-being (McHugh and Barlow, 2010).”

“However, an exploratory factor analysis assumes that items are scored on an interval or quasi-interval scale, in line with classical test theory (Wright, 1977).”

“As for the internet conditions, participants received weekly modules consisting of both reading material and exercises to be completed by the participants every week, comparable to a self-help book (Andersson, 2016).”

“However, not everyone seems to benefit, with only half of the patients being regarded as responders at post-treatment and follow-up (Loerinc et al., 2015).”

“a small proportion of all patients deteriorate during treatment (Boswell et al., 2015).”

“Strupp and Hadley (1977) considered this issue in their tripartite perspective of psychological treatments, proposing that positive and negative effects might be judged differently by the patient, the therapist, and significant others.”

“…from a study on negative effects in a clinical trial on social anxiety disorder (Boettcher et al., 2014), a consensus statement among researchers (Rozental et al., 2014), a qualitative analysis of the responses to open-ended questions among patients in treatment (Rozental et al., 2015), and a…”

“Yet other negative effects might occur, but have thus far gained less attention (Castonguay et al., 2010).”

“This was performed on a secure online interface using an auto generated identification code, such as 1234abcd, thereby ensuring anonymity and minimizing data loss (Vlaescu et al., 2016).”

“Recently, attempts have instead been made to investigate negative events from the perspective of the patient, most notably the Inventory for the assessment of Negative Effects of Psychotherapy (INEP; Ladwig et al., 2014), and the Experiences of Therapy Questionnaire (ETQ; Parker et al., 2013).”

“…with rates as high as 92.9% among patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder that were assessed with the Side-effects of Psychotherapy Scale in a study by Moritz et al. (2015), and as low as 5.2% in national survey by Crawford et al. (2016) probing for ‘lasting bad effects from the treatment’.”

“In relation to the factors obtained by Rozental et al. (2016), the first component is associated with symptoms, while the other is linked to four separate factors.”

“Rasch analysis, on the other hand, which is based on modern test theory, can be applied in order to analyse ordinal data in a way that provides linear measures, thereby addressing some of the caveats of classical test theory (Wright, 1996).”

“Each clinical trial included in the current study distributed a primary outcome measure selected by relevance, for instance the Spider Phobia Questionnaire (Muris and Merckelbach, 1996).”

“Several secondary outcome measures were also administered; the Patient Health Questionnaire – 9 items (PHQ-9; Löwe et al., 2004), the Generalized Anxiety Disorder – 7 items (GAD-7; Spitzer et al., 2006), and the Brunnsviken Brief Quality of Life Scale (BBQ; Lindner et al., 2016).”

“A similar study was conducted using Rasch analysis for the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scales (Lovibond and Lovibond, 1995), suggesting that a number of items could be removed and that it was not supported as a general instrument for mental distress (Shea et al., 2009).”

“…statement among researchers (Rozental et al., 2014), a qualitative analysis of the responses to open-ended questions among patients in treatment (Rozental et al., 2015), and a literature review, items for the Negative Effects Questionnaire (NEQ) were generated and investigated using an…”

“The psychological treatments that were administered in the clinical trials consisted of CBT, delivered in various formats: face-to-face, virtual reality, and via the internet, with or without guidance from a therapist, or by support on demand (Andersson et al., 2017).”

“It was also accepted that 5% of the sample may fail to demonstrate acceptable goodness-of-fit by chance, without a serious threat to validity (Patomella et al., 2006).”

“Using the results from a study on negative effects in a clinical trial on social anxiety disorder (Boettcher et al., 2014), a consensus statement among researchers (Rozental et al., 2014), a qualitative analysis of the responses to open-ended questions among patients in treatment (Rozental et al.,…”

“…with rates as high as 92.9% among patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder that were assessed with the Side-effects of Psychotherapy Scale in a study by Moritz et al. (2015), and as low as 5.2% in national survey by Crawford et al. (2016) probing for ‘lasting bad effects from the treatment’.”

“Recently, attempts have instead been made to investigate negative events from the perspective of the patient, most notably the Inventory for the assessment of Negative Effects of Psychotherapy (INEP; Ladwig et al., 2014), and the Experiences of Therapy Questionnaire (ETQ; Parker et al., 2013).”

“Recently, attempts have instead been made to investigate negative events from the perspective of the patient, most notably the Inventory for the assessment of Negative Effects of Psychotherapy (INEP; Ladwig et al., 2014), and the Experiences of Therapy Questionnaire (ETQ; Parker et al., 2013).”

“In order to investigate and evaluate the validity of the internal structure and response processes of the NEQ, Rasch analysis was applied, following the same steps as described in Lerdal et al. (2016).”

“The psychological treatments that were administered in the clinical trials consisted of CBT, delivered in various formats: face-to-face, virtual reality, and via the internet, with or without guidance from a therapist, or by support on demand (Andersson et al., 2017).”

“or worsening symptoms caused by psychotherapy when measured systematically with a questionnaire (42%– 51%; Moritz et al., 2015; Rozental et al., 2019; SchermulyHaupt et al., 2018).”

“• Negative Effects Questionnaire (NEQ): The self-report measure consists of three parts for a total of 32 items (47).”

“Symptom deterioration was one of the main risks reported in this review, similar to face-to-face therapies [13,45].”