Content area
Abstract
This purpose of this study was to measure the contributions that twelve classifications of presenting problems and the counseling relationship make in determining client satisfaction with counseling in a college counseling center context. Participants were 155 undergraduate and graduate students who engaged in counseling during the Fall, 1997, semester at a large southwestern university counseling center. Data utilized in this study was archival. A recursive, just-identified path model was developed. Multiple regression analyses were used and the maximum likelihood estimation method was applied to the structural equation model. Analysis of Moment Structures (Amos; Arbuckle, 1995) was utilized in the analysis of the structural model. Findings from the study supported one classification of presenting problem (issues related to romantic relationship difficulties) as being an indirect predictor of client satisfaction via its effects on the counseling relationship. When the presenting problem of anxiety was studied in isolation, it was shown to be a significant predictor of client satisfaction. Personally-related problems were identified as four times as influential on client satisfaction than were academic and vocational problems. Findings also attested to the important role of the counseling relationship as a significant predictor of client satisfaction and as a mediator variable between clients' presenting problems and their satisfaction with counseling. Based on these findings, implications for practice include the importance of counselors being highly skilled in building therapeutic relationships with clients and the possibility of modifying the counseling process used with clients addressing vocational and academic issues to more similarly reflect the process in place with clients addressing personally-related issues. Such modification may serve to increase client satisfaction.
