Providers' Perspectives of Factors Influencing Implementation of Evidence-Based Treatments in a Community Mental Health Setting: A Qualitative Investigation of the Training-Practice Gap
The present study aimed to elucidate relations between provider perceptions of aspects of the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR; Damshroder et al., 2009) and provider attitudes towards the implementation of evidence-based treatments (EBTs) in an ethnically diverse community health setting. Guided by directed content analysis, we analyzed 28 semi-structured interviews that were conducted with providers during the pre-implementation phase of a larger implementation study for Cognitive Processing Therapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (CPT-C for PTSD, Resick et al., 2008). Our findings extend the existing literature by also presenting provider-identified client-level factors that contribute to providers' positive and negative attitudes towards EBTs. Provider-identified client-level factors include: client motivation to engage in treatment, client openness to EBTs, support networks of family and friends, client use of community and government resources, the connection and relationship with their therapist, client treatment adherence, client immediate needs or crises, low literacy or illiteracy, low levels of education, client cognitive limitations, and misconceptions about therapy. These results highlight the relations between provider perceptions of their clients, provider engagement in EBT training, and subsequent adoption of EBTs. We present suggestions for future implementation research in this area.