Comparing the clinical effectiveness of an online versus face-to-face ‘compassionate mind’ group for adults in a secondary care setting

The following paper outlines a service evaluation project for a Compassionate Mind Group (CMG) in a UK adult Psychology service for people with severe and enduring mental health difficulties within secondary care. Due to the impact of Covid-19, the CMG was moved online in April 2020. The aim of this project was to compare outcomes between the face-to-face CMG and the online CMG in order to check for any changes in group participants’ clinical symptoms and processes based on mode of delivery. This was done by analysing pre-existing data from three different questionnaires. Statistical tests revealed that mode of delivery for the CMG did not have a significant effect on outcome measure results. However, there was a significant difference between pre- and post-CMG scores on some of the measures, depending on mode of group delivery. Participant age and gender did not appear to affect group differences. Implications from the project findings as well as possible areas for future research are discussed.