Social Desirability, Psychological Distress, and Consumer Satisfaction With Mental Health Treatment

The purpose of the present study was to determine the strength of the relationship between social desirability, psychological distress, and consumer satisfaction with mental health treatment. More specifically, our goal was to assess whether socially desirable responding accounts for much more variance in reports of client satisfaction than in self-reports of psychological distress. The sample consisted of 82 clients in therapy at the Center for Eclectic Psychology, a clinic affiliated with a large francophone university. Subjects completed the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding, the Symptom Checklist-10, and the Client Satisfaction Questionnaire. Correlational analyses revealed that both consumer satisfaction reports and psychological distress scores were contaminated by socially desirable responding. These findings are discussed in terms of the validity of client satisfaction measures.