The Effectiveness of Psychotherapy in Jails With Spirituality Informed Care: A Benchmark Comparison

Individuals with mental health disorders are overrepresented in the criminal correctional system and these systems are one of the largest providers of mental health services. However, there is limited research on the effectiveness of services in correctional settings. Additionally, a large majority of individuals who are incarcerated express a desire for integration of religious and spiritually (R/S) interventions. In the current naturalistic study, we collected data from therapists (n = 22) and clients (n = 138) through outcome measures, which assessed relationship distress, psychological distress, spiritual distress, as well as the frequency and types of various R/S interventions utilized in each session. We utilized benchmarking methodology to compare the results to established randomized clinical trials. Clients exhibited a medium-to-large-sized effect for pre-post change in psychological distress (d = 0.65), a medium-sized effect for relationship distress (d = 0.48), and small-sized effect for spiritual distress (d = 0.29). In comparison to the benchmarks, psychological distress was clinically equivalent; however, relationship distress was not. When comparing the effect size for the R/S outcome measure, the current sample was not clinically equivalent to any of the R/S benchmarks.