Measuring Homework Compliance in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Adolescent Depression: Review, Preliminary Findings, and Implications for Theory and Practice

Despite the importance placed on completion of extra-session homework in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), a review of the available literature suggests there is much about the nature of homework compliance that remains to be empirically evaluated. This is especially true among youth receiving CBT. The present study begins to address how best to measure homework compliance and offers a fine-grained, single-case analysis of homework compliance during acute treatment with depressed adolescents. The results demonstrate that 56% of homework assignments were completed. Also observed was substantial within-subject temporal variability in homework compliance and a tendency for compliance to decrease during the course of treatment. These data call into question the adequacy of any static aggregate measure of homework compliance and have implications for both researchers and clinicians.