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Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology
Published in: Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 10/2005

01-10-2005 | Original Paper

Testing the Working Alliance Inventory (WAI) in a French primary care setting

Predictive value and factor structure

Authors: Nicole Guédeney, MD, PhD, Jacques Fermanian, MD, PhD, Florence Curt, MD, PhD, Antonia Bifulco, PhD

Published in: Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology | Issue 10/2005

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Abstract

Background

Working alliance has shown a predictive value of the outcome in different therapeutic settings but was not yet studied in a non-medical setting.

Methods

The predictive value and the factor structure of the Working Alliance Inventory (WAI) [36-item client version; as reported by Horvath and Greenberg (J Couns Psychol 36:223–233, 1989)] were studied in a French primary care setting on a sample of 130 adults accessing social services.

Results

The WAI total score completed after the first meeting was positively predictive of quality of the working alliance 4 months later. An exploratory factor analysis produced two orthogonal factors which explained 45.12% of the total variance: a first factor (23 items) labelled ‘positive expectations about the usefulness of help’ and a second factor (13 items) labelled ‘absence of suspicion about the effects of help’.

Conclusions

The WAI is shown to be applicable to primary care social work settings to measure the working alliance phenomenon and predict disruption of practitioner–client relationship.
Footnotes
1
Source: S.S.P., DASES, 2000: 55% families with children, 49% with private home, 33% with a salary.
 
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Metadata
Title
Testing the Working Alliance Inventory (WAI) in a French primary care setting
Predictive value and factor structure
Authors
Nicole Guédeney, MD, PhD
Jacques Fermanian, MD, PhD
Florence Curt, MD, PhD
Antonia Bifulco, PhD
Publication date
01-10-2005
Publisher
Steinkopff-Verlag
Published in
Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology / Issue 10/2005
Print ISSN: 0933-7954
Electronic ISSN: 1433-9285
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-005-0972-4

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