Enhancing intervention fidelity: a means of strengthening study impact.
OBJECTIVE
Intervention studies that address the goals of the Healthy People initiative are increasing, and many focus on health concerns of children and adolescents. The purpose of this paper is to present strategies and discuss the rationale for including intervention fidelity in study design.


CONCLUSIONS
Researchers need to verify that their interventions were delivered as designed (intervention fidelity), and that variations from the design can be assessed. Infidelity can result in non-significant findings that are not due to the study design but rather to elements that affected the intervention delivery.


CONCLUSIONS
Addressing intervention fidelity in study design supports the researcher's conclusion about associations between intervention and outcomes and helps reduce premature abandonment of potentially useful interventions.
Horner
Sharon
S
University of Texas at Austin, School of Nursing, Austin, TX, USA. s.horner@mail.utexas.edu
Rew
Lynn
L
Torres
Rosamar
R
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D015399:Nursing Research / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012107:Research Design