Expanding the reach of psychological science through implementation science: Introduction to the special issue.

Abstract

Implementation science is the study of methods to promote the systematic uptake of effective practices into routine care settings with the broad goal of ensuring that scientific discoveries realize their potential and improve people's lives. As a field, implementation science includes three primary foci: (a) understanding the context in which individuals will implement practices that have a strong, established evidence base (b) developing implementation approaches that target the factors that may accelerate or hinder implementation, and (c) conducting pragmatic trials to test these implementation approaches. Psychological science has contributed substantially to the knowledge and methods used in implementation science. In medicine and public health, these contributions have been leveraged to facilitate the uptake of screening and prevention programs, hand hygiene to reduce infection transmission, and many medical innovations. In behavioral health settings, implementation science has often focused on specific forms of psychotherapy, with emphasis on the evidence-based psychological practices that are highlighted in treatment guidelines. This article provides an overview of the field with an emphasis on the bidirectional relationship between implementation science and psychological science illustrated through the articles accepted for this Special Issue of the American Psychologist. It concludes with recommendations for future research at the intersection of implementation science and psychological science. Background: Opportunities for Bidirectional Learning at the Intersection of Implementation Science and Psychological ScienceReducing the gap between science and practice is the great challenge of our time. Decades of psychological science has yielded discoveries that support psychological health and well-being. Yet this knowledge is not typically effectively disseminated to the public or implemented in applied settings, thus not achieving its promise to meet population health needs. Difficulties in reducing the science to practice gap have been driven by an incomplete understanding of the realities of specific practice settings, suggesting that bidirectional learning and contributions from multiple stakeholders are

Clinician Maladaptive Anxious Avoidance in the Context of Implementation of Evidence-Based Interventions: A Commentary

“…Avoidance may also take subtler forms, such as misidentifying a patient as not appropriate for a specific EBI (65) or rationalizing that a patient with whom it may be more challenging to deliver a specific EBI may not be appropriate for that intervention (66). Critically, removing negatively valenced components from the broader evidence-based protocols from which they were derived (e.g., time out from behavioral training programs) and only delivering positively valenced components of EBIs, such as teaching parents to praise their child, can compromise fidelity and clinical outcomes (67).…”

Researcher–practitioner partnerships and in‐school laboratories facilitate translational research in reading

“…The Hub provides professional development for educators and parents, facilitates partnerships between researchers and practitioners to provide a bridge between research and educational practice, and advocates for policies and practices that benefit students with language‐based learning disabilities. Such direct researcher–practitioner partnerships, while theoretically possible in the past, have become a reality now because of changing viewpoints on the science of reading (Petscher, Cabell, et al, 2020) more direct contact between researchers and practitioners via social media, and increasing funding for translational/implementation science (see also Petscher, Terry, et al, 2020; Solari et al, 2020 for other examples in reading and Wiltsey Stirman & Beidas, 2020 for examples in other domains).…”

Excellence and equity: A model and mindset for evidence-based practice in high-demand outpatient clinics.

“…Additionally, expert commentary on evidence-based practice (EBP) is often so mired by dispute that clinical leaders are left wondering where they should actually invest their finite resources. Nevertheless, a new focus on implementation science, defined as the “study of methods to promote the application of research findings and EBP and principles into routine practice,” suggests that both sides are diligently working to find a way to meet in the middle of the science–practice gap (Wiltsey Stirman & Beidas, 2020, p. 1033).…”