Supporting evidence-based practice in speech-language pathology: A review of implementation strategies for promoting health professional behavior change

Abstract

Evidence-based practice (EBP) is recognized as being essential to optimizing service provision and attaining positive client outcomes in speech-language pathology. Yet, there are a number of barriers to attaining EBP in speech-language pathology, including how to support clinicians to successfully change their practices and behaviors. Drawing from the field of implementation science, the authors describe several implementation strategies that researchers can use to facilitate the behavior of health professionals towards adopting empirically supported practices. Key studies are identified that provide practical advice for researchers on how to select and study specific implementation strategies in the service of enhancing EBP in real-world environments. An illustrative example from physical and occupational therapy illustrates how researchers might apply this advice in their own research designs. Ultimately, well-designed studies using multifaceted implementation strategies are needed to reduce the research-to-practice gap in speech-language pathology.

Keywords:

• Evidence-based practice
• Implementation science
• Implementation strategies
• Health professional behavior change
• Speech-language pathology

Acknowledgments

The authors extend their sincere appreciation to Howard Goldstein and Lesley Olswang for providing valuable feedback on earlier versions of this manuscript. Thank you to Samantha Aung for assisting with manuscript preparation.