Building Evidence‐Based Interventions for the Youth, Providers, and Contexts of Real‐World Mental‐Health Care

Abstract

Efforts to identify empirically supported treatments (ESTs) for youth's mental health problems are valuable, but the descriptor empirically supported does not guarantee that a treatment will work well in everyday clinical use. The voltage drop often seen when ESTs move from efficacy studies to clinical practice contexts may reflect limited exposure to real‐world conditions during development and testing. One result may be interventions that are focused more narrowly and are more linear than the clinical practice they are designed to enhance. In this article, we suggest three strategies for building and refining ESTs that are robust for real‐world application: (a) designing interventions to fit the contexts of youth treatment, (b) structuring interventions that can be tailored to fit individual youth characteristics, and (c) building programs for nontraditional intervention contexts. In addition, we describe how to develop interventions that are ready for practical implementation: the deployment‐focused model.

Associations Between Trauma Type, Timing, and Accumulation on Current Coping Behaviors in Adolescents: Results from a Large, Population-based Sample

“…Thus, greater insight into whether and how current coping behaviors are impacted by a history of trauma is needed, as coping plays an important role in shaping both resilience and risk for psychopathology. Efforts to understand the trauma-coping relationship are important for identifying youth at risk of poor outcomes or in need of intervention, as coping skills are known to be malleable through psychological treatment (Santucci et al 2015). …”

Adapting an attention‐deficit hyperactivity disorder parent training intervention to different cultural contexts: The experience of implementing the New Forest Parenting Programme in China, Denmark, Hong Kong, Japan, and the United Kingdom

“…It has been shown that there is a risk that interventions will lose impact and potency when implemented in everyday clinical settings (Barwick et al, ). Hence, it is emphasized that the transition of efficacious treatments has to be carefully planned and adapted to the clinical setting in which the treatment is being implemented (Santucci, Thomassin, Petrovic, & Weisz, ). For these purposes, the NFPP was adjusted to fit the clinical and cultural context of Danish child and adolescent psychiatry services.…”

Toward Dynamic Adaptation of Psychological Interventions for Child and Adolescent Development and Mental Health

“…One challenge that current practice faces is that evidencebased intervention approaches exist but many have shown weaker effects and are less robust in real life upon application (e.g., Santucci, Thomassin, Petrovic, & Weisz, 2015;Weisz, Krumholz, Santucci, Thomassin, & Ng, 2015;Weisz, Ugueto, Cheron, & Herren, 2013). Can we learn from medical research, especially medication trials and procedural approvals, as well as evidence-based policy and large-scale health promotion programs?…”