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InCharge Education Foundation : Research : Reports & Publications : Credit Counseling and Personal Financial Well-being : 18-Month Panel Study: Chang...

18-Month Panel Study: Changes in Financial Behavior and Incidence of Financial Stressors

As one of the leading debt management and credit counseling organizations in the country, Profina wants to measure the extent to which the service it performs for its clients is making a difference in their financial well-being.

In particular, Profina wants to know whether any improvement in client financial life can fairly be attributed to its service even after allowing for effects beyond its determination. To get that assurance, it was decided to conduct a study in which clients joining the debt management program (DMP) would be tracked to determine whether there were differences in the financial lot between those staying in the program (called actives in this report) and clients who either dropped out after at least one payment (called dropouts) and those who never even made a payment. The latter is used as a control group in this report.

This tracking was initiated with a survey in mid-2000. At that time customers who had signed an agreement sometime in the previous three months were mailed questionnaires on their financial wellness, behaviors and frequency of occurrence of typical financial stressors.

The behaviors addressed were those that were strategic, preventive and laying the foundations for continuing financial wellness. Stressors were incidents in financial life that were clear symptoms of financial distress. Questions were also asked about state of health and quality of life at and away from work, reflecting concern that financial distress can be pervasive, affecting not only health but also job productivity.

If those effects are significant, then financial distress could also become the concern of both the public health community and business. Other surveys with the same questions were conducted in 2001 and 2002 to gauge changes in responses. This report focuses on the change in responses on financial behavior and stressors over the 18 months separating the first and third data collection efforts.

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