Implementation quality of a family‐focused preventive intervention in a community‐based dissemination
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.5042/jcs.2010.0692 |
| Pages | 18-30 |
| Date | 02 December 2010 |
| Published date | 02 December 2010 |
| Author | Angel Cantu,Laura Hill,Linda Becker |
| Subject Matter | Education,Health & social care,Sociology |
Journal of Children’s Ser vices • V olume 5 Issue 4 • Dece mber 2010 © P ier Professional Ltd
18
Open access credit
The study was supported in part by two grants from
the National Institute of Drug Abuse of the US National
Institutes of Health (R21 DA025139-01A1 and R21 DA19758-01
Abstract
The aims of this study were to determine (1) the degree to which an evidence-based
intervention (EBI) delivered outside the context of a research trial remained faithful to the
content and design of the programme as intended and as reported in experimental trials of
the same programme, and (2) whether implementation quality affected programme outcomes.
We report results of an observational study of 11 sites involved in the statewide dissemination
of a popular family-focused prevention programme, the Strengthening Families Programme
for Parents and Youth 10–14. We found numerous differences between the community-
based implementations we observed and researcher-driven implementations of the same
programme, but variability in programme delivery and adherence to content were unrelated
to programme outcomes. We conclude that short-term outcomes of well-designed EBIs
delivered by well-trained facilitators may be robust to minor changes in delivery and content.
However, the effects of implementation quality on longer-term outcomes are unknown.
Key words
Translational research; substance-abuse prevention; evidence-based interventions;
programme fidelity; implementation
and to select programme content based on
community needs. Research on the efficacy of
such evidence-based interventions (EBIs) provides
convincing evidence that the initiation and abuse
Introduction
Communities with funding to implement
substance abuse prevention are able to choose
from increasing numbers of evidence-based
interventions designated as ‘exemplary’ or ‘model’,
Implementation quality of a
family-focused preventive
intervention in a community-
based dissemination
Angel Marie Cantu
Thrive by Five Washington, US
Laura G Hill
Washington State University, US
Linda G Becker
Division of Behavioral Health and Recovery for the State of Washington, US
10.5042/jcs.2010.0692
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