title: Treatment fidelity plan for an activity intervention designed for persons with dementia.
abstract: The testing of psychosocial interventions in a clinical trial poses many challenges to maintaining a rigorous experimental protocol and to delivering the interventions uniformly throughout the project. These challenges directly affect the reported effectiveness of psychosocial interventions. In this article, the authors describe the treatment fidelity plan developed by an interdisciplinary research team from recreational therapy and nursing for implementing recreational activities during a clinical trial funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research. The trial tests the efficacy of activities for responding to the behavioral symptoms of dementia. The authors report treatment fidelity strategies to allow comparison of their intervention with that of other studies, to improve effect size in similar studies, and to facilitate replication and translation of this work into clinical practice.
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA. amk20@psu.edu
authors.forename: Ann
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kolanowski
authors.forename: Linda
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Buettner
authors.forename: Joyel
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Moeller
mesh_terms: D003704:Dementia / Q000451:nursing* / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D006801:Humans; D007899:Leisure Activities; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic / Q000379:methods*