Innovative Methods to Assess Psychotherapy Practices (imAPP)

Palo Alto Veterans Institute for Research

Status: Active, not recruiting

Conditions: Paper-Based Worksheet Collection; Mobile Application-Based CBT Worksheet Collection

Treatments: Behavioral: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT03479398

WIS0003AGG

R01MH112628 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Details and patient eligibility

About

This project compares two methods of assessing the quality of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) that do not involve directly observing sessions: 1) adherence checklists embedded in clinical notes, and 2) rating the quality of worksheets that are completed with therapist guidance during sessions. It also examines whether ratings of worksheets completed on a mobile app are reliable and valid quality measures. This information can inform strategies to monitor and enhance CBT quality, which can ultimately improve the quality of care and clinical outcomes.

Full description

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has been demonstrated to be effective for numerous presenting problems, including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Several large mental health systems have invested heavily in programs to train their clinicians in CBTs, but relatively little attention has been devoted to the monitoring or promotion of CBT quality after training is complete. Identifying strategies to do so can facilitate research and training, and is critical to ensuring consumer access to high quality, evidence-based treatments. The lack of a scalable, effective, and efficient method of monitoring quality is a key barrier to efforts to promote high-quality implementation. Self-report fidelity assessments increase clinician and consumer burden and may not accurately reflect clinician skill or the intensity with which CBT interventions are delivered. Observation and expert ratings are time and resource intensive and unlikely to be feasible or affordable in large systems. To maximize the likelihood of broad implementation once effective strategies to monitor quality are established, it is essential that these strategies are feasible and acceptable in routine care contexts, leveraging information collected during routine care. To date, few monitoring strategies that do not involve observation, client/caregiver reports, or clinician self-reports have been tested. To address this critical implementation challenge, we propose to refine and evaluate a method of monitoring quality that is based on an evaluation of CBT worksheets that are completed in session. Because the worksheets were developed to implement core cognitive and behavioral elements and are embedded in CBTs across diagnostic categories, they may be used to elucidate the clinician's ability to guide the client through CBT interventions in session. Preliminary research with this measure demonstrated high correlations between the measure and observer ratings of clinician competence, associations with subsequent symptom change, and high agreement between raters with differing levels of familiarity with CBT. Completion of the ratings based on worksheets requires only a small fraction of time required for session observation and ratings. This project will compare this novel strategy to observer ratings and adherence checklists that are embedded in clinical notes. Furthermore, it will compare the accuracy of worksheet data collected by mobile app to paper-form worksheets, and assess the feasibility and acceptability of these strategies. Because the core elements of CBT and its worksheets are common across many CBTs, this research has broad implications for monitoring fidelity to CBTs in a variety of mental health and healthcare systems and settings. This research will be conducted by a team of investigators with expertise in CBT, training, implementation, psychotherapy process and outcome research, psychometrics, longitudinal data analysis, mobile technologies and healthcare economics, with input from community partners and end-users. The resulting products have the potential to significantly improve efforts to monitor and ensure ongoing high quality implementation of CBT in routine care settings.

Enrollment: 439 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

A. Clinician eligibility:

• Private practice or employment at an agency at which the administration agrees to allow the recruitment and participation of their providers in research related activities
• English Speaking
• No anticipated plans to leave their current agency for at least 18 months
• Willingness to allow their CBT sessions, worksheets, surveys, and interview data, and clinical notes to be used for research purposes
• Carry a caseload that typically includes patients who experience depression, anxiety, or PTSD, with whom they regularly conduct individual therapy sessions and/or capacity to increase the proportion of such patients (e.g., clinic sees a substantial number of individuals with PTSD or depression)
• Must be trained (worksheet or web-based training and consultation) or in training for Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) for PTSD or CBT for depression or anxiety that uses worksheets Does not include CBT-i Can include aspects (i.e., worksheets) of CBT for substance use as long as depression or anxiety is primary diagnoses
• Must anticipate at least 3 eligible patients
• Must be willing to record sessions and provide worksheets and symptom measures to the study
• Must have computer and internet access
• Must be willing to use a mobile app on a tablet or mobile device

B. Patient eligibility:

• Must be 18 yrs. of age or older
• Experience one or more of the following (both a diagnosis and cut off score):

Clinician diagnosis of primary PTSD (PTSD-Checklist-5 score of 33 or more) Depressive disorder (e.g., major depressive disorder, dysthymia; PHQ of 10 or above) Or an Anxiety Disorder (Beck Anxiety Disorder score of 22 or above)

• Note that if a patient has a score close to the cut-off score, it's up to the therapist digression

  • Must be willing to allow the team to collect session recordings, measures, notes and worksheets
  • Must be able to read and write at a sixth-grade level or above
  • Able to participate in sessions conducted in English, or Spanish (if working with bilingual clinicians in community or private practice)
  • Must be willing to engage in CBT/CPT
  • Therapist considers the treatment with the individual patient to be "mostly" CBT or CPT

Cannot have*:

• Imminent risk of suicide or homicide (requiring hospitalization) that require immediate treatment In need of detoxification (can be enrolled when substance abuse treatment is not the primary treatment target) Active psychosis or manic episode unless well controlled by medication and not the primary focus of treatment Cognitive impairments that preclude any participation in therapy

C. Administrator eligibility:

• Must have a support or managerial/supervisory position at the clinic(s) from which A and B are being recruited from
• Must also be willing to complete a packet of study measures/partake in an interview

Trial design

439 participants in 2 patient groups

App Condition

Description:

Although we will be mostly observing routine practice, we will randomize patients into either an App condition or paper condition. The App condition refers to patients completing routine Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) worksheets on a mobile application during session. Everything else that occurs in treatment sessions will be consistent with routine care practices.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Paper Condition

Description:

Although we will be mostly observing routine practice, we do randomize patients into either an App condition or paper condition. The paper condition refers to patients completing routine CBT worksheets on paper (the current standard) during session.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy