Premature Termination at a University Counseling Center

The following three sets of variables were proposed as discriminating between clients who returned for scheduled appointments following intake and clients who did not: (a) client perception of the intake counselor as expert, attractive, and trustworthy; (b) agreement of client and counselor on the presenting problem; and (c) client satisfaction with the intake interview. Dropouts (n = 30) and continuers (n = 104) were compared on these dimensions. It was found that client satisfaction and perceptions of trustworthiness and expertness were related to clients' returning for scheduled appointments. No differences between continuers and dropouts were found with respect to client perceptions of counselor attractiveness or client-counselor agreement on problem identification. The results are discussed with respect to the interrelations of the five predictor variables and the meaning of these relations for process and outcome research, including premature termination.