The emotional resources group: an extended real-world evaluation

Overview

An extended service evaluation of the emotional resources group, a brief emotion regulation intervention delivered within secondary care adult mental health services in NHS Scotland. The evaluation employed a within-subjects repeated measures design to assess change across emotional regulation, self-efficacy, well-being, and functioning in a real-world clinical setting.

Methods and approach

The service evaluation utilised a within-subjects repeated measures design to assess participants who attended the ERG programme. Analysis was conducted for programme completers and a conservative intent-to-treat sample. Outcome measures encompassed emotional regulation as the primary measure, with secondary measures of self-efficacy, well-being, and functioning. Effect sizes were calculated alongside rates of reliable and clinically significant change.

Key Findings

Completer analysis demonstrated highly statistically significant improvements across all measured domains. Large effect sizes were observed for emotional regulation, self-efficacy, and well-being, with moderate to large effects for functioning. Intent-to-treat analysis yielded comparable findings with highly significant improvements and moderate to large effect sizes across all measures except functioning, which demonstrated moderate effect sizes. Good rates of reliable and clinically significant change were identified for the primary measure of emotional regulation in both analytical samples.

Implications

The findings extend empirical support for ERG effectiveness in extended real-world NHS secondary care outpatient settings. The intervention demonstrates credibility and acceptability within adult mental health service contexts, establishing its viability for routine delivery in NHS-based secondary care provision. These results support the intervention's capacity to produce both statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvements in emotional regulation and related outcomes.