TPC-Journal-V4-Issue5

The Professional Counselor \Volume 4, Issue 5 472 Knowledge and use of evidence-based practices . The Practice Elements Checklist (PEC) is based on the Hawaii Department of Health’s comprehensive summary of top modular EBP elements (Chorpita & Daleiden, 2007). Principal investigators of the larger study created the PEC in consultation with Bruce Chorpita of the University of California, Los Angeles, an expert in mental health technologies for children and adolescents. The PEC asks clinicians to provide ratings of the eight skills found most commonly across effective treatments for four disorder areas (ADHD, DBD, depression and anxiety). Respondents used a 6-point Likert scale to rate both current knowledge of the practice element (1= none and 6 = significant), as well as frequency of use of the element in their own practice, and frequency with which the clinician treats children whose primary presenting issue falls within one of the four disorder areas (1 = never, 6 = frequently). In addition to total knowledge and total frequency subscales (scores ranging from 4–24), research staff calculated four knowledge and four frequency subscale scores (one for each disorder area) by averaging responses across practice elements for each disorder area (scores ranging from 1–6). Clinicians also obtained total PEC score by adding all subscale scores, resulting in a total score ranging from 16–92. Although this approach resulted in each item being counted twice, it also determined how total knowledge and skill usage are related to CSE, as well as skills in specific disorder areas. While internal consistencies were found to be excellent for each of the subscales, ranging from .84–.92, validity of the measure has yet to be evaluated. Clinicians completed the PEC at end of Year 2. Study Design SMH clinicians were recruited from their community agencies approximately 1 month prior to the initial staff training. After providing informed consent, clinicians completed a set of questionnaires, which included demographic information, level of current training and CSE, and were randomly assigned to the QAI intervention or the W intervention. Four training events were provided for participants in both conditions (at the beginning and end of both Years 1 and 2). During the four training events, individuals in the QAI condition received training in the three elements reviewed previously. For individuals involved in the W (i.e., comparison) condition, training events focused on general staff wellness, including stress management, coping strategies, relaxation techniques, exercise, nutrition and burnout prevention. At each site, senior clinicians (i.e., licensed mental health professionals with a minimum of a master’s degree and 3 years experience in SMH) were chosen to serve as project supervisors for the condition to which they were assigned. These clinicians were not considered participants, and maintained their positions for the duration of the study. Over the course of the project, each research supervisor dedicated one day per week to the study, and was assigned a group of roughly 10 clinicians to supervise. Within the QAI condition, supervisors held weekly group meetings with small groups of five clinicians to review QAI processes and activities in their schools, as well as strategies for using the evidence base; in contrast, there was no study-related school support for staff in the W condition. Results Preliminary Analyses and Scaling Analyses were conducted using SPSS, version 20; tests of statistical significance were conducted with a Bonferroni correction (Cohen, Cohen, West, & Aiken, 2003), resulting in the use of an alpha of .0045, two- tailed. To facilitate comparisons between variables, staff utilized a scaling method known as Percentage of Maximum Possible (POMP) scores, developed by Cohen, Cohen, Aiken, & West (1999). Using this method, raw scores are transformed so that they range from zero to 100%. This type of scoring makes no assumptions