RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Despite efforts to promote guideline use, guideline adoption is often suboptimal due to failure to identify and address relevant barriers. Barriers vary not only between guidelines but also between settings, intended users, and targeted patients. Multi-professional guidelines are often used in child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), making the implementation process more difficult. Despite this, there is a lack of knowledge about which barriers to consider or if barriers vary by profession. The aim of this study was to address these gaps by examining barriers to adopting a multi-professional depression guideline in the context of a nationwide implementation study. METHODS: 440 CAMHS clinicians across Sweden (52%) completed the Barriers and Facilitators Assessment Instrument (BFAI) ahead of an implementation endeavour. BFAI is a widely used and validated measure of guideline implementation on four scales: Innovation, Provider, Context, and Patient. Barriers were calculated at scale and at item levels. ANOVA and chi-square tests were used to analyse differences by profession and effect sizes were calculated. RESULTS: Overall, clinicians were optimistic about guideline uptake, particularly about guideline characteristics and their own adoption ability. Barriers were related to the patient and the context domains, as well as to individual clinician knowledge and training. Perceptions differed across professions; psychiatrists were most, and counsellors were least positive about guideline embeddedness. CONCLUSION: This large-scale quantitative study suggests that CAMHS clinicians have an overall favourable attitude towards guideline adoption but highlights the need for adaptations to certain patient groups. Strategies to improve guideline use should primarily address these patient issues while securing proper support to the implementation. Implementation efforts, particularly those targeting staff knowledge, training, and involvement, may benefit from being tailored to different professional needs. These findings may inform implementation projects in CAMHS and future research.
RESUMO
BACKGROUND: There is a call for valid and reliable instruments to evaluate implementation of evidence-based practices (EBP). The 15-item Evidence-Based Practice Attitude Scale (EBPAS) measures attitude toward EBP, incorporating four lower-order factor subscales (Appeal, Requirements, Openness, and Divergence) and a Total scale (General Attitudes). It is one of a few measures of EBP attitudes evaluated for its psychometric properties. The reliability of the Total scale has been repeatedly supported, but also the multidimensionality of the inventory. However, whether all of the items contribute to the EBPAS Total beyond their subscales has yet to be demonstrated. In addition, the Divergence subscale has been questioned because of its low correlation with the other subscales and low inter-item correlations. The EBPAS is widely used to tailor and evaluate implementation efforts, but a Swedish version has not yet been validated. This study aimed to contribute to the development and cross-validation of the EBPAS by examining the factor structure of t a Swedish-language version in a large sample of mental health professionals. METHODS: The EBPAS was translated into Swedish and completed by 570 mental health professionals working in child and adolescent psychiatry settings spread across Sweden. The factor structure was examined using first-order, second-order and bifactor confirmatory factor analytic (CFA) models. RESULTS: Results suggested adequate fit for all CFA models. The EBPAS Total was strongly supported in the Swedish version. Support for the hierarchical second-order model was also strong, while the bifactor model gave mixed support for the subscales. The Openness and Requirements subscales came out best, while there were problems with both the Appeal (e.g. not different from the General Attitudes factor) and the Divergence subscales (e.g. low reliability). CONCLUSIONS: Overall, the psychometric properties were on par with the English version and the total score appears to be a valid measure of general attitudes towards EBP. This is the first study supporting this General Attitudes factor based on a bifactor model. Although comparatively better supported in this Swedish sample, we conclude that the use of the EBPAS subscale scores may result in misleading conclusions. Practical implications and future directions are discussed.