Mental Health Clinicians' Experiences of Implementing Evidence-Based Treatments

Abstract

Implementation research has tremendous potential to bridge the research–practice gap; however, we know more about barriers to evidence-based care than the factors that contribute to the adoption and sustainability of evidence-based treatments. In this qualitative study the authors explore the experiences of clinicians (N = 11) who were implementing evidence-based treatments, highlighting the factors that they perceived to be most critical to successful implementation. The clinicians' narratives reveal many leverage points that can inform administrators, clinical supervisors, and clinicians who wish to implement evidence-based treatments, as well as other stakeholders who wish to develop and test strategies for moving evidence-based treatments into routine care.

Keywords:

• Evidence-based practice
• implementation research
• qualitative research

Notes

This work was supported in part by the Clinical Research Training Center (TL1 RR024995) and the Dissemination and Implementation Research Core of the Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences (UL1 RR024992), a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (T32 MH19960) from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), and the NIMH-funded Center for Mental Health Services Research (P30 MH068579) at Washington University in St. Louis.

This work was previously presented at the Washington University School of Medicine's Interdisciplinary Clinical Research Training Symposium on July 27, 2010, at the Washington University School of Medicine's Research Training Symposium and Poster Session on October 27, 2010, and at the Society for Social Work and Research's Annual Meeting on January 14, 2012.