Effects of a strategy to improve offender assessment practices: Staff perceptions of implementation outcomes.
Drug Alcohol Depend
; 152: 230-8, 2015 Jul 01.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-25896737
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
This implementation study examined the impact of an organizational process improvement intervention (OPII) on a continuum of evidence based practices related to assessment and community reentry of drug-involved offenders Measurement/Instrumentation, Case Plan Integration, Conveyance/Utility, and Service Activation/Delivery.METHODS:
To assess implementation outcomes (staff perceptions of evidence-based assessment practices), a survey was administered to correctional and treatment staff (n=1509) at 21 sites randomly assigned to an Early- or Delayed-Start condition. Hierarchical linear models with repeated measures were used to examine changes in evidence-based assessment practices over time, and organizational characteristics were examined as covariates to control for differences across the 21 research sites.RESULTS:
Results demonstrated significant intervention and sustainability effects for three of the four assessment domains examined, although stronger effects were obtained for intra- than inter-agency outcomes. No significant effects were found for Conveyance/Utility.CONCLUSIONS:
Implementation interventions such as the OPII represent an important tool to enhance the use of evidence-based assessment practices in large and diverse correctional systems. Intra-agency assessment activities that were more directly under the control of correctional agencies were implemented most effectively. Activities in domains that required cross-systems collaboration were not as successfully implemented, although longer follow-up periods might afford detection of stronger effects.Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Attitude of Health Personnel
/
Outcome Assessment, Health Care
/
Evidence-Based Practice
/
Criminals
Type of study:
Prognostic_studies
/
Qualitative_research
Aspects:
Implementation_research
Limits:
Humans
Language:
En
Journal:
Drug Alcohol Depend
Year:
2015
Document type:
Article
Publication country:
IE
/
IRELAND
/
IRLANDA