How do you prevent or control for patients (unconsciously) trying to show their therapist in a favourable light when completing the follow-up?
The tendency to want to please the practitioner has to be accepted as a potential problem. Completing the follow-up without seeing the previous scores should help, though there is some evidence that patients can actually measure change in their condition better if they DO see their previous scores. Validation studies, which have involved interviewing patients and practitioners who are using MYMOP, have found this to be an infrequent problem. Some patients may in fact use it as a way to demonstrate they are not much better which is easier than actually saying that.
