Design elements in implementation research: a structured review of child welfare and child mental health studies.
Implementation science is an emerging field of research with considerable penetration in physical medicine and less in the fields of mental health and social services. There remains a lack of consensus on methodological approaches to the study of implementation processes and tests of implementation strategies. This paper addresses the need for methods development through a structured review that describes design elements in nine studies testing implementation strategies for evidence-based interventions addressing mental health problems of children in child welfare and child mental health settings. Randomized trial designs were dominant with considerable use of mixed method designs in the nine studies published since 2005. The findings are discussed in reference to the limitations of randomized designs in implementation science and the potential for use of alternative designs.
Landsverk
John
J
Child and Adolescent Services Research Center, Rady Children's Hospital San Diego, 3020 Children's Way, San Diego, CA 92123, USA. jlandsverk@casrc.org
Brown
C Hendricks
CH
Rolls Reutz
Jennifer
J
Palinkas
Lawrence
L
Horwitz
Sarah McCue
SM
D002648:Child; D002669:Child Welfare; D055317:Evidence-Based Practice; D006284:Health Plan Implementation; D006302:Health Services Research / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008605:Mental Health Services; D012107:Research Design