Therapists’ reactions to child-abuse reports. Licensed

Chapter 12, Problem 48E

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QUESTION:

Therapists' reactions to child-abuse reports. Licensed therapists are mandated by law to report child abuse by their clients. This requires the therapist to breach confidentiality and possibly lose the client's trust. A national survey of licensed psychotherapists was conducted to investigate clients' reactions to legally mandated child-abuse reports (American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, Jan. 1997). The sample consisted of 303 therapists who had filed a child-abuse report against one of their clients. The researchers were interested in finding the best predictors of a client's reaction (y) to the report, where y is measured on a 30-point scale. (The higher the value, the more favorable the client's response to the report.) The independent variables found to have the most predictive power are listed here.

\(x_1\) = Therapist’s age (years)

\(x_2\) = Therapist’s gender (1 if male, 0 if female)

\(x_3\) = Degree of therapist’s role strain (25-point scale)

\(x_4\) = Strength of client-therapist relationship (40-point scale)

\(x_5\) = Type of case (1 if family, 0 if not)

\(x_1 x_2\) = Age * gender interaction

a. Hypothesize a first-order model relating y to each of the five independent variables.

b. Give the null hypothesis for testing the contribution of \(x_4\), strength of client-therapist relationship, to the model.

c. The test statistic for the test, part b, was t = 4.408 with an associated p-value of .001. Interpret this result.

d. The estimated \(\beta\) coefficient for the \(x_1 x_2\) interaction term was positive and highly significant (p < .001). According to the researchers, "This interaction suggests that.. as the age of the therapist increased,... male therapists were less likely to get negative client reactions than were female therapists." Do you agree?

e. For this model, \(R^2=.2946\). Interpret this value.

Questions & Answers

QUESTION:

Therapists' reactions to child-abuse reports. Licensed therapists are mandated by law to report child abuse by their clients. This requires the therapist to breach confidentiality and possibly lose the client's trust. A national survey of licensed psychotherapists was conducted to investigate clients' reactions to legally mandated child-abuse reports (American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, Jan. 1997). The sample consisted of 303 therapists who had filed a child-abuse report against one of their clients. The researchers were interested in finding the best predictors of a client's reaction (y) to the report, where y is measured on a 30-point scale. (The higher the value, the more favorable the client's response to the report.) The independent variables found to have the most predictive power are listed here.

\(x_1\) = Therapist’s age (years)

\(x_2\) = Therapist’s gender (1 if male, 0 if female)

\(x_3\) = Degree of therapist’s role strain (25-point scale)

\(x_4\) = Strength of client-therapist relationship (40-point scale)

\(x_5\) = Type of case (1 if family, 0 if not)

\(x_1 x_2\) = Age * gender interaction

a. Hypothesize a first-order model relating y to each of the five independent variables.

b. Give the null hypothesis for testing the contribution of \(x_4\), strength of client-therapist relationship, to the model.

c. The test statistic for the test, part b, was t = 4.408 with an associated p-value of .001. Interpret this result.

d. The estimated \(\beta\) coefficient for the \(x_1 x_2\) interaction term was positive and highly significant (p < .001). According to the researchers, "This interaction suggests that.. as the age of the therapist increased,... male therapists were less likely to get negative client reactions than were female therapists." Do you agree?

e. For this model, \(R^2=.2946\). Interpret this value.

ANSWER:

Step 1 of 6

A sample consists of 303 therapists who had ?led a child-abuse report against one of their

clients.

The data having client reaction  (y) is measured on 30-point scale. The independent

variables found have the most predictive power are listed here

  = Therapist’s age (years)

  = Therapist’s gender (1 if male, 0 if female)

  = Degree of therapists role strain (25-point scale)

  = Strength of client-therapist relation

  = Type of case (1 if family, 0 if not)

  = Age  gender interaction

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