Conducting trials in community settings: the provider perspective

Providers and their treatment programs are the focus of efforts to translate research into practice. In the best of partnerships, they are more than the recipients of research efforts, because they are actively involved in developing and evaluating healthy links between practice and research . This article reports on experiences in a multisite methamphetamine treatment trial funded in October of 1998 by the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. The goal of the trial is to generate knowledge about how a comprehensive treatment protocol developed by the Matrix Center in Los Angeles can be effectively transferred to the community drug treatment system. The Matrix model provides a three-times-per-week outpatient treatment experience that combines behavioral, educational, and 12-Step counseling techniques. When complete, the study will compare outcomes of the 16-week Matrix program with the usual treatment offered by the programs at the eight participating sites. The UCLA Drug Abuse Research Center and the Matrix Institute on Addictions coordinate the trial. This article describes factors that have fostered or hindered the development of this partnership. These factors can be divided into three temporal phases, although the circumstances presented may occur at any time during the research process. The first set of factors affecting the development of a healthy research-to-practice relationship exists prior to the establishment of that relationship. A second set of circumstances occurs at the initiation of the collaborative enterprise, and the third set of factors is more involved in the development and maintenance of ongoing productive collaboration between researchers and providers.