Change in work functioning from pre‐ to post‐treatment in feedback‐informed Couple and Family Therapy in Norway

Work functioning has significance for the individual and society but has rarely been used as an outcome measure for psychotherapy. Work-related factors such as work satisfaction and working hours impact personal and relational life. More than half of those on sick leave suffer from social problems such as family-related distress or mental health issues rather than medical issues. This article investigates work functioning change from pre- to post-treatment in feedback-informed couple and family therapy. With a sample of 165 clients from different parts of Norway, we used hierarchical multiple regression and calculated clinical significant change in the analysis. We found firstly that work functioning improved from pre- to post-treatment. Secondly, we found that level of depressive symptoms, couple distress and family functioning predicted work functioning at pre-treatment. Thirdly, we found that the improvements on these measures (depressive symptoms, couple distress and family functioning) predicted work functioning at post-treatment. Practitioner points Clients in couple and family therapy improve from start to end of therapy in work functioning, depressive symptoms, couple distress and family functioning Individual and relational improvement predicts the level of work functioning at post-treatment Therapists should attend to the client's difficulties not only at individual and relational levels but also in life functioning Even if effect sizes are high for the treatment, not all clients improve