Turning Training into Action: Translating Training of Behavioral Health Providers into Evidence-Based Practices
Abstract
This project addresses the Treatment focus area of the TBIPHRP, specifically, increasing provider adoption and availability of evidence-based treatments. Two persistent and thorny challenges that interfere with the quality of behavioral health care for military families are: (a) ensuring that providers can effectively deliver evidence-based therapies (EBTs) and (b) that individuals in need can find and connect with well- prepared providers. These challenges are particularly acute for the reserve component personnel (Tanielian et al., 2014, 2018), who systematically receive less and lower-quality care for their mental health problems than personnel serving in the active component (Hummer et al., 2021). The proposed project builds on the Star Behavioral Health Providers (SBPH) program, which trains community-based therapists to serve military members and their families. Our objective is to strengthen the implementation of SBHP by testing the effectiveness of methods for providing follow-on support after training and for promoting and facilitating provider engagement with RC personnel and their families. We will focus on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia and Cognitive Processing Therapy for PTSD, two well-validated evidence-based therapies that are recommended as front-line treatments for their respective conditions by both the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs. These conditions are among the most common for military personnel, especially those who have experienced wartime deployments (Schvey et al., 2021). This study will identify strategies that can be used to promote competent application of evidence-based practices with both military and civilian populations, and to strengthen connections between community-based providers and military-connected clients, which would offer wide benefits inside and outside the military. The study carries no direct risks to military families, but it is possible we will learn more about ineffective than effective strategies, which will limit contributions to the field. The study will be conducted in two phases lasting a total of 45 months. This project directly targets civilian mental health providers in the SBHP program in order to increase community-based EBT care for military-connected patients, particularly Reserve Component personnel and their families. Planned interventions are also predicted to increase the use of gold-standard therapies, helping to improve the quality of services that these Service Members and their family members receive when seeking care in the community. Further, it is expected that the findings of the proposed study will generalize to other clinical settings and populations of interest including active-duty personnel, Veterans, and their families thereby facilitating the delivery of EBT care to these populations. References Hummer, J., Hepner, K. A., Roth, C. P., Brown, R. A., Sousa, J. L., Ruder, T., & Pincus, H. A. (2021). Behavioral health care for National Guard and Reserve Service members from the military health system. RAND Corporation, https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA421-1.html Schvey, N. A., Burke, D., Pearlman, A. T., Britt, T. W., Riggs, D. S., Carballo, C., & Stander, V. (2021). Perceived barriers to mental healthcare among spouses of military service members. Psychological Services. https://doi.org/10.1037/ser0000523 Tanielian, T., Farmer, C. M., Burns, R. M., Duffy, E. L., and Setodji, C. M. (2018). Ready or not: Assessing the capacity of New York State health care providers to meet the needs of veterans. RAND Corporation.. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2298.html. Tanielian, T., Farris, C., Batka, C., Farmer, C. M., Robinson, E., Engel, C. C., Robbins, M. W., and Jaycox, L. H. (2014). Ready to serve: Community-based provider capacity to deliver culturally competent, quality mental health care to veterans and their families. RAND
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jan 04, 2024
- Source ID
- HT94252310479
Entities
People
- Shelley MacDermid Wadsworth
Organizations
- Purdue University
- United States Army