Tailored interventions to overcome identified barriers to change: effects on professional practice and health care outcomes
Abstract
Background
Strategies to implement change in health professional performance have variable impact. A potential explanation is that the barriers to implementation are different in different settings and at different times. Change may be more likely if the strategies were specifically chosen to address the identified barriers.
Objectives
To assess the effectiveness of strategies tailored to address specific, identified barriers to change in professional performance.
Search methods
We searched the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care Group (EPOC) specialised register and pending files until end of December 2002. English language articles only were included.
Selection criteria
Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that reported objectively measured professional practice or health care outcomes in which at least one group received an intervention designed (or tailored) to address prospectively identified barriers to change.
Data collection and analysis
Two reviewers independently extracted data and assessed quality. We also contacted study authors to obtain any missing information. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were undertaken.
Main results
We included 15 studies. For Comparison 1 (an intervention tailored to address identified barriers to change compared to no intervention or an intervention(s) not tailored to the barriers), there was no consistency in the results and the effect sizes varied both across and within studies.
A meta‐regression of a subset of the included studies, using a classical approach estimated a combined OR of 2.18 (95% CI: 1.09, 4.34), p = 0.026 in favour of tailored interventions. However, when a Bayesian approach was taken, meta‐regression gave a combined OR of 2.27 (95% Credible Interval: 0.92, 4.75), which was not statistically significant.
Authors' conclusions
Interventions tailored to prospectively identify barriers may improve care and patient outcomes. However, from the studies included in this review, we were unable to determine whether the barriers were valid, which were the most important barriers, whether all barriers were identified and if they had been addressed by the intervention chosen. Based on the evidence presented in this review, the effectiveness of tailored interventions remains uncertain and more rigorous trials (including process evaluations) are needed. Further research needs to address explicitly the questions of identifying and addressing barriers.
PICOs
Plain language summary
Are strategies tailored to overcome barriers to changing health care professional behaviour effective?
Some strategies to change the practice or behaviour of health care professionals are successful in improving health care while others are not. One explanation may be that there are different barriers to change in different settings and at different times. Change may be more likely if the strategies are specifically chosen to address the identified barriers. Barriers could be related to the individual (e.g. uncertainty about the risks of a procedure); related to social issues (e.g. peer pressure to perform a certain way); or related to the organisation (e.g. no access to equipment). And to successfully change behaviour, barriers should be identified and a strategy developed to overcome those barriers. In other words, it is thought that strategies tailored to overcome barriers should be more effective to change behaviour than non‐tailored strategies or no strategy at all.
Fifteen studies evaluated tailored strategies for behaviour change in health care professionals. The results were mixed. It is therefore, unclear whether tailored strategies are more effective than non‐tailored strategies or no strategy. Due to a small number of studies, it is also not possible to determine whether strategies tailored to overcome organisational barriers are more effective than those that were not. It is also not clear whether all barriers or important barriers were identified and addressed by the strategies. More research about how to identify and overcome barriers is needed.
