Effectiveness of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy in Iran: A Systematic Review

Background/Rationale Solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT) is a versatile social work intervention that has been applied to a variety of settings with diverse populations. While SFBT has been applied in many different countries and cultures, only a small portion of the outcome studies or systematic reviews have evaluated the effectiveness of SFBT with various ethnic groups in comparison to the numbers of evaluations that exist across different countries. Recent literature, for example, reveals an increase in articles with Iranian populations, yet little is known about the practice SFBT in Iran. According to Alasdair Macdonald’s (2016) online evaluation list of international SFBT randomized controlled studies, for example, 26 of the reported 100 SFBT outcome studies were conducted in Iran, signifying the need for a systematic review. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to review all outcome studies in English that were conducted in Iran to assess the efficacy of SFBT with Iranians and to identify populations, settings, and treatment fidelity issues that may also be of interest to social work practitioners.

Methods: To evaluate how SFBT has been applied with Iranian populations, twenty-six eligible outcome studies were located and further evaluated for a full-text review; ten studies met criteria for this systematic review. Data was extracted from each of the selected studies to include: population demographics (i.e. age of participants, gender, treatment and control group sample sizes, primary population’s race(s)/ethnicity(s)), presenting problems targeted, outcomes mentioned in study, study design (i.e. RCT, quasi-experimental design, single case designs), and characteristics of the SFBT intervention (i.e. independent SFBT, SBFT combined with another approach, Solution Focused Therapy), level of intervention (i.e. individual, family, group), specific techniques reported, who delivered the intervention, and measurement instruments used.

Results: It was found SFBT was applied in Iran with different client populations including children and young adults, couples, adults, and in settings such as schools and universities as well as outpatient mental health centers. Seventy percent of the articles delivered services to female clients and 100% of the articles reported the level of SFBT intervention was delivered in a group format. The two most common presenting problems targeted included depression and social adjustment difficulties, followed by other problem areas such as low intrinsic motivation, marriage unhappiness, low self-perception, and low self-efficacy. The outcomes of all ten studies revealed SFBT was significantly effective in treating clients of various presenting problems.

Conclusions and Implications: The findings indicate SFBT promotes positive outcomes on the effects of depression and maladjustment with Iranian female clients in academic and outpatient settings. All studies revealed SFBT was delivered as group format, therefore future social work research should include determining the benefits of providing SFBT in individual versus group formatting with Iranian clients. To close the health gap and to achieve equal opportunity and justice for clients, social workers will benefit from learning the techniques of SFBT as evidence supports these interventions provide positive outcomes for Iranian clients.