Benchmarking the effectiveness of psychotherapy: Program evaluation as a component of evidence-based practice

The medical director of a child guidance center is starting a new treatment program. Following intense media coverage of adverse events associated with selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, depressed teens and their families are refusing to accept pharmacotherapy. The director has paid for three social work therapists to attend a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) workshop, and these clinicians will begin seeing depressed teens next week. The director, however, is worried. From what she has heard and read, CBT has a good track record in treating depression although it may work best in combination with the medications that her patients are refusing to take. In addition, she wonders how well will CBT work when delivered by her social work therapists to the population of poor, Spanish-speaking teens served by the clinic?.