Feedback Informed Treatment, Individual Edition

Feedback-Informed Treatment (FIT) is a pan-theoretical approach for evaluating and improving the quality and effectiveness of behavioral health services. Research to date documents that FIT dramatically improves both retention and outcome of behavioral health services. FIT involves routinely and formally soliciting feedback from clients regarding the therapeutic alliance and outcome of care and using the resulting information to inform and tailor service delivery. FIT is not only consistent with but operationalizes the American Psychological Association’s (APA) definition of evidence-based practice. To wit, FIT involves “the integration of the best available research…and monitoring of patient progress (and of changes in the patient’s circumstances — e.g. job loss, major illness) that may suggest the need to adjust the treatment…(e.g., problems in the therapeutic relationship or in the implementation of the goals of the treatment)” (American Psychologist, May 2006, p. 273, 276-277).