Study protocol: Novel Methods for Implementing Measurement-Based Care with youth in Low-Resource Environments...

Area of Science:

• Implementation Science
• Mental Health Services Research
• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Background:

• Comorbidities are common in youth receiving community mental health care.
• Measurement-based care (MBC) significantly improves psychotherapy impact by focusing treatment and enhancing engagement.
• Despite proven benefits, MBC is rarely implemented with fidelity due to challenges in identifying and addressing barriers.

Purpose of the Study:

• To pilot pragmatic implementation methods to optimize MBC fidelity in community mental health centers.
• To identify and prioritize barriers to MBC implementation.
• To match strategies to prioritized barriers to improve treatment quality for youth.

Main Methods:

• Piloting pragmatic implementation methods in four diverse community mental health centers.
• Utilizing rapid evidence synthesis, rapid ethnography, and design kits.
• Employing barrier prioritization and causal pathway diagramming to develop implementation plans.

Main Results:

• Actionable barriers will be identified through the described methods.
• Implementation plans will be created to optimize MBC fidelity.
• MBC fidelity will be compared post-implementation with historical controls.

Conclusions:

• Optimizing MBC implementation can transform youth mental health care by targeting critical symptoms early.
• Expected challenges include recruitment and engagement in high-pressure settings.
• Co-design of a toolkit for design kit methods will involve youth and professional communities.