Randomized Trial of Common Elements Training in School Mental Health Care: Clinician Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practice

Empirically-supported treatments (ESTs) consistently outperform usual care in efficacy trials, but transportability to real world settings has been historically poor. The current study examined the impact of different training methods for the Common Elements approach to ESTs on school mental health (SMH) clinicians' knowledge, attitudes and use of empirically supported techniques. Random assignment of 45 SMH clinicians to one of two conditions for training in the Common Elements approach to ESTs as compared to 36 clinicians trained in a prevention program revealed within-group improvements in knowledge and familiarity with empirically supported techniques. Neither clinician attitudes toward nor self-reported use of ESTs changed over time; mean attitude scores were very positive at baseline. Between-group differences were not detected, perhaps as a function of group contamination. Qualitative interview data suggest that adoption and implementation of ESTs are more complex than existing literature indicates. The resulting grounded theory includes contextual factors of the clinicians' experience and SMH care setting which influence adoption and implementation among all training groups