On retention rates: Your general methods seem to make sense, since one would expect gradual tapering off of benefits, but your inputs seem even more optimistic than I originally thought.
I’m not sure Strong Minds is a great benchmark for retention rates, partly because of the stark differences in context (rural Uganda vs UK cities), and partly because IIRC there were a number of issues with SM’s study, e.g. a non-randomised allocation and evidence of social desirability bias in outcome measurement, plus of course general concerns related to the fact it was a non-peer-reviewed self-evaluation. Perhaps retention rates of effects from UK psychotherapy courses of similar duration/intensity would be more relevant? But I haven’t looked at the SM study for about a year, and I haven’t looked into other potential benchmarks, so perhaps yours was a sensible choice.
Also not a great benchmark in a UK context, but Haushofer and colleagues recently did a study* of Problem Management+ in Uganda that found no benefits at the end of a year (paper forthcoming), even though it showed effectiveness at the 3 month mark in a previous study in Kenya.
*Haushofer, J., Mudida, R., & Shapiro, J. (2019). The Comparative Impact of Cash Transfers and Psychotherapy on Psychological and Economic Well-being. Working Paper. Available upon request.
Yes, feeling much better now fortunately! Thanks for these thoughts and studies, Derek.
Given our time constraints, we did make some judgements relatively quickly but in a way that seemed reasonable for the purposes of deciding whether to recommend AfH. So this can certainly be improved and I expect your suggestions to be helpful in doing so. This conversation has also made me think it would be good to explore six monthly/quarterly/monthly retention rates rather than annual ones—thanks for that. :)
Our retention rates for StrongMinds were also based partly on this study, but I wasn’t involved in that analysis so I’m not sure on the details of the retention rates there.
Thanks Aidan! Hope you’re feeling better now.
Most of your comments sound about right.
On retention rates: Your general methods seem to make sense, since one would expect gradual tapering off of benefits, but your inputs seem even more optimistic than I originally thought.
I’m not sure Strong Minds is a great benchmark for retention rates, partly because of the stark differences in context (rural Uganda vs UK cities), and partly because IIRC there were a number of issues with SM’s study, e.g. a non-randomised allocation and evidence of social desirability bias in outcome measurement, plus of course general concerns related to the fact it was a non-peer-reviewed self-evaluation. Perhaps retention rates of effects from UK psychotherapy courses of similar duration/intensity would be more relevant? But I haven’t looked at the SM study for about a year, and I haven’t looked into other potential benchmarks, so perhaps yours was a sensible choice.
Also not a great benchmark in a UK context, but Haushofer and colleagues recently did a study* of Problem Management+ in Uganda that found no benefits at the end of a year (paper forthcoming), even though it showed effectiveness at the 3 month mark in a previous study in Kenya.
*Haushofer, J., Mudida, R., & Shapiro, J. (2019). The Comparative Impact of Cash Transfers and Psychotherapy on Psychological and Economic Well-being. Working Paper. Available upon request.
Yes, feeling much better now fortunately! Thanks for these thoughts and studies, Derek.
Given our time constraints, we did make some judgements relatively quickly but in a way that seemed reasonable for the purposes of deciding whether to recommend AfH. So this can certainly be improved and I expect your suggestions to be helpful in doing so. This conversation has also made me think it would be good to explore six monthly/quarterly/monthly retention rates rather than annual ones—thanks for that. :)
Our retention rates for StrongMinds were also based partly on this study, but I wasn’t involved in that analysis so I’m not sure on the details of the retention rates there.