The relative influence of team climate, team norms and social network norms on health professionals' implementation of a national recommendation to offer service-users diagnosed with schizophrenia family intervention therapy.
Social influence is an important variable influencing health professionals' adoption of clinical recommendations. Different theories conceptualise social influence in different ways. This study operationalised three different forms of social influence--team climate, team norms (descriptive and injunctive) and social network norms (descriptive and injunctive), and compared their ability to predict mental health professionals' self-reported intention to adopt a national, clinical recommendation. A cross-sectional survey was developed, measuring the constructs in relation to intention to offer service-users family an intervention therapy, as part of a larger, theory-based implementation study. The survey was administered to all mental health professionals in one mental health trust. Using multiple regression, descriptive network norms were found to be the only significant predictor of intention. This suggests that behaviour change interventions in this context may benefit from promoting descriptive network norms, for example, emphasising the adoption behaviour of influential peers. Given the high degree of overlap found between network and team members in this study, and the potential challenges of targeting behaviour-change interventions at informal, more difficult to identify networks, future research is needed to evaluate the feasibility of targeting behaviour-change interventions at social networks compared with formal teams.
a Department of Health Sciences , University of York , York , UK .
A
A
Hanbury
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004059:Diffusion of Innovation; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D005196:Family Therapy; D019983:Guideline Adherence / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D033182:Intention; D015279:Organizational Culture; D010348:Patient Care Team; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000628:therapy*; D012925:Social Conformity; D012944:Social Support; D006113:United Kingdom