The relationship between consumer, clinician, and organizational characteristics and use of evidence-based and non-evidence-based therapy strategies in a public mental health system

- The City of Philadelphia is implementing cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT).
- We investigate the contribution of contextual factors on therapist use of CBT.
- Clinician and organizational factors predicted use of CBT.
- Targets for future strategies to improve the implementation of CBT are suggested.

We investigated the relationship between consumer, clinician, and organizational factors and clinician use of therapy strategies within a system-wide effort to increase the use of cognitive-behavioral therapy. Data from 247 clinicians in 28 child-serving organizations were collected. Clinicians participating in evidence-based practice training initiatives were more likely to report using cognitive-behavioral therapy when they endorsed more clinical experience, being salaried clinicians, and more openness to evidence-based practice. Clinicians participating in evidence-based practice initiatives were more likely to use psychodynamic techniques when they had older clients, less knowledge about evidence-based practice, more divergent attitudes toward EBP, higher financial strain, and worked in larger organizations. In clinicians not participating in evidence-based training initiatives; depersonalization was associated with higher use of cognitive-behavioral; whereas clinicians with less knowledge of evidence-based practices were more likely to use psychodynamic techniques. This study suggests that clinician characteristics are important when implementing evidence-based practices; and that consumer, clinician, and organizational characteristics are important when de-implementing non evidence-based practices. This work posits potential characteristics at multiple levels to target with implementation and deimplementation strategies.