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Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research

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01-09-2018 | Original Article

Furthering Our Understanding of Therapist Knowledge and Attitudinal Measurement in Youth Community Mental Health

Authors: Kelsie H. Okamura, Puanani J. Hee, David Jackson, Brad J. Nakamura

Published in: Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research | Issue 5/2018

Abstract

Examining therapist evidence-based practice (EBP) knowledge seems an important step for supporting successful implementation. Advances in implementation science suggest a distinction between practice specific (i.e., knowing which practices are derived from the evidence base) and EBP process (i.e., integrating research evidence, clinical experience, client characteristics, and monitoring outcomes) knowledge. An examination of how these knowledge types are measured and relate to attitudes appears warranted. In our sample of 58 youth community therapists, both practice specific and EBP process knowledge accounted for EBP attitude scores, which varied by therapist demographic variables. Implications for measurement of therapist constructs and future research in identifying therapist predictors of EBP use and youth clinical improvement are discussed.

The R-EBPPAS Familiarity subscale was chosen as the index of EBP process knowledge over the R-EBPPAS total score due to the inclusion of the EBP process attitudes scale in calculating its total scale. Given that the predicted criterion in this study was an attitude, the authors posit that using the R-EBPPAS total scale (which includes another type of attitude) would unfairly bias the results. Indeed, the EBPAS-50 total score was highly correlated with the R-EBPPAS attitudes (r = .64, p < .01) and total scales (r = .58, p < .01), and seven of the 12 EBPAS-50 subscales were correlated with the R-EBPPAS attitudes subscale.

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Title: Furthering Our Understanding of Therapist Knowledge and Attitudinal Measurement in Youth Community Mental Health
Authors: Kelsie H. Okamura
Puanani J. Hee
David Jackson
Brad J. Nakamura
Publication date: 01-09-2018
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research / Issue 5/2018
Print ISSN: 0894-587X
Electronic ISSN: 1573-3289
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10488-018-0854-1

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