Objective: The assessment of the therapeutic relationship has become increasingly important due to evidence suggesting that it has a direct therapeutic effect and may improve outcome indirectly. In Great Britain and Sweden the STAR (Scale To Assess Therapeutic Relationship) was developed for pan-theoretical assessment of therapeutic relationships from both clinicians' and patients' points of view. We translated the English version of the instrument into German and made an analysis of its feasibility and reliability.
Methods: The German translation (STAR-D) was generated in a consensus procedure. The STAR-D was then administered to 100 patients admitted to the Psychiatric University Hospital Zurich (STAR-P) and their clinicians in charge (STAR-C). The psychometric qualities of feasibility and reliability were assessed.
Results: The overall results for the scales in terms of feasibility and reliability were satisfactory. We did, however, find shortcomings concerning the subscales. They could not be extracted in the principal component analysis and showed high inter-correlation coefficients.
Conclusions: STAR can serve as an important tool in research concerning the therapeutic relationship. We suggest conducting further analyses concerning the validity of the subscales in the German version.
© Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.