Implementation Supports to Reduce Burnout in Therapists Delivering Child Trauma EBPs

Overview

The majority of children exposed to early adversity and trauma do not have access to sustainably delivered evidence-based mental health programs (EBPs), despite the growing prevalence of large-scale multiple-EBP implementation efforts aimed at increasing access to these services. The objective of this proposal is to develop and test a package of implementation strategies designed to promote the sustained delivery of child trauma EBPs by reducing provider turnover through targeting the associated mechanisms of provider burnout and organizational psychological safety climate. Findings will have a significant public health impact by informing efforts to increase the sustained availability of child trauma EBPs, thereby improving outcomes for children exposed to trauma.

Detailed description

Many evidence-based mental health interventions have been developed to address the negative outcomes associated with child exposure to early adversity and trauma. Despite these promising advances, however, the majority of children served in publicly funded mental health systems do not receive evidence-based programs (EBPs). To address this research-to-practice gap, several large-scale, system-driven implementation efforts of multiple trauma EBPs have been launched over the last decade, including in the states of California and Arkansas. Though these system-driven initiatives often increase EBP delivery in community settings following the initial implementation push, long-term sustainment of EBP delivery is low. Workforce risk factors, such as provider burnout leading to turnover, have been identified as contributing to the poor long-term sustainment of trauma EBPs. Therefore, an important step to consider in supporting the longterm sustainment of child trauma EBPs is to develop implementation strategies that target provider burnout and organizational climate factors associated with decreased provider retention. This study will develop and pilot a package of implementation strategies, "Supporting Providers \& Preventing the Overwhelming of Resources in Trauma Systems" (SUPPORTS), aimed increasing the sustained delivery of trauma EBPs by addressing the factors associated with provider retention related to burnout. The development of SUPPORTS will be informed by a needs assessment conducted with programs involved with the multiple-EBP implementation efforts in California and Arkansas. A small randomized controlled pilot will then be conducted in California.

Interventions

• Other SUPPORTS
  The SUPPORTS implementation model will be developed and refined based on community feedback. It will likely include a combination of strategies demonstrated to reduce burnout and secondary traumatic stress in the occupational health literature, such as psychoeducation about burnout, mindfulness training, or changes in scheduling or the physical environment. As the most effective interventions have been shown to involve an integration of both individual- and organization-directed strategies suppo

Primary outcome measures

• Change in Therapist Burnout [Time frame: The MBI will be completed by the therapist at baseline, and at 3-, 6-, and 12-month follow-up assessments (3, 6, and 12 months following pre-intervention/enrollment in study).]

Secondary outcome measures (1)

• Change in Therapist Turnover Intention [Time frame: The TIS-6 will be completed by the therapist at baseline, and at 3-, 6-, and 12-month follow-up assessments (3, 6, and 12 months following pre-intervention/enrollment in study).]

Eligibility criteria

Inclusion criteria

• Therapists who have delivered a (or components of a) trauma EBP to a child in the past year.

Exclusion criteria

• Therapists employed at their current agency for less than 6 months.

Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.

Healthy volunteers: Yes

Study design

Allocation

Randomized

Model

Parallel assignment

Masking

Open label

Primary purpose

Health services research

Study locations

United States · 1 center

• San Diego State University — San Diego

Identifiers

NCT: NCT04712461 · IRB-25-0275

Primary sources (government registries)

• ClinicalTrials.gov (US NIH)

View this study on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗