Text

theses

Interpersonal Psychotherapy-Adolescent Skills Training (IPT-AST) is an efficacious group depression preventive intervention for teenagers with elevated depressive symptoms. While its efficacy has been well established, the next step is to determine whether IPT-AST can be implemented in schools. Research suggests there exist certain obstacles to the implementation of evidence-based interventions in the community, including organizational factors, provider characteristics, and program features. The proposed project, an initial step toward the implementation of IPT-AST in schools, assessed the feasibility and acceptability of a preliminary IPT-AST workshop for school mental health professionals and examined provider and organizational factors associated with implementation-related outcomes. The research team held a one-day IPT-AST workshop for school mental health professionals from select New Jersey public middle and high schools. Thirty-eight participants completed self-report forms at pre-workshop and 37 at post-workshop. At the end of the workshop, participants reported high training satisfaction and significantly greater knowledge of core IPT-AST techniques and processes. From this data, organizational resources emerged as a significant positive predictor of readiness (i.e., preparedness and confidence to deliver the intervention) and age emerged as a trend level negative predictor of implementation commitment. The finding that a one-day workshop can be both satisfactory to participants and sufficient for increasing knowledge of psychological interventions is consistent with the literature. Additionally, the finding that organizational factors and age are important for implementation is also consistent with previous research. Overall, these results support the initial feasibility and acceptability of a one-day IPT-AST workshop to train school mental health professionals in the intervention. Moreover, they suggest that we may need to increase organizational resources in schools so that school mental health professionals are ready to implement this intervention. Additionally, the results suggest the importance of finding new and different ways to reach older and more experienced mental health professionals. This research may inform future IPT-AST training workshops and implementation support to better fit the diverse needs and capacities of schools and school mental health professionals.

ETD_6027

M.S.

Includes bibliographical references

by Caroline Haimm

doi:10.7282/T39S1SRK

ETD graduate

The author owns the copyright to this work.