Getting them through the door: screening optimization strategies for behavioral parent training

Clinics providing mental health treatment to children and families experience a multitude of barriers shepherding patients from their first clinic contact through to graduation from treatment, including difficulty retaining families, getting families to complete screening forms, and finding patients who are eligible for the services offered. This study describes the iterative strategies used by a mental health clinic for child behavior management training to increase families' likelihood of completing their screening forms, attending sessions, and graduating from treatment.

Over the course of five years, this clinic implemented four subsequent strategies to improve intake, including introducing a structured follow-up to get patients to complete screening forms, shortening the screening forms to reduce family time burden, moving screening procedures online, and distributing a public survey link where the intake forms could be accessed without an initial phone screen.

Results of logistic regression analyses indicate that, although none of the screening interventions was successful for increasing a child's likelihood of attending intake or graduating from treatment, the addition of the public survey link significantly increased families' chances of completing their initial screening forms.

Findings indicate that, while other interventions are needed to improve chances of child intake attendance and graduation, it appears that the combination of screening strategies described in this study may begin to overcome barriers to families accessing treatment.