The development of an online measure of therapist competence

Abstract

The topic of therapist training has been relatively neglected in the research literature. Similarly, the related issue of the measurement of the outcome of training, especially therapist competence, has been largely overlooked. Data supporting the effectiveness of various methods of clinician training and those providing estimates of the level of competence achieved by clinicians are scarce. Validated scalable methods for the measurement of clinician outcomes such as competence are required to evaluate both existing and new methods of training. This study focuses on the development and testing of an online measure (eMeasure) to assess therapists' applied knowledge of Enhanced Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT-E), a transdiagnostic evidence-supported treatment for the full range of eating disorders. The eMeasure meets the stringent requirements of the Rasch model and has three equivalent versions making it suitable for repeat testing of trainees in outcome studies. Preliminary best cut points to distinguish between those who are competent and those who are not are identified. While the present work focused on CBT-E, the method described may be used to develop and test other measures relating to therapist competence.

Clinical psychology trainees' self versus supervisor assessments of practitioner competencies

“…However, in addition to their small sample size (n = 13), this study was also conducted on experienced practitioners, not limited to psychologists, which again limits generalisability to postgraduate psychology trainees. Although training programs purport to implement various activities to promote the development of trainees' reflective practice (Orchowski, Evangelista, & Probst, 2010), given the dearth of empirical research, it is unclear how effective most are (Cooper et al, 2015). A key aspect of training thought to facilitate accurate reflective self-assessment is the provision of observation informed supervision (Falender & Shafranske, 2017;Gonsalvez, Brockman, & Hill, 2016).…”

Development and evaluation of a measure of treatment knowledge in guided self-help for eating disorders in a sample of healthcare students and professionals

“…The questionnaire complements existing measures within eating disorders (e.g. [10]), expanding the portfolio for assessing therapist competence to another level of stepped care (see [2]). The questionnaire showed good reliability, internal consistency, and preliminary validity within this sample, and also has the advantage of being relatively brief.…”

“…The suggestions of Case and Swanson [19] were also useful in designing and evaluating questions. Although there are flaws in Alternate Choice items, this format was chosen given the importance of assessing explicit knowledge of the treatment manual ( [7,10]; see also [20]).…”

Increasing the Availability of Psychological Treatments: A Multinational Study of a Scalable Method for Training Therapists (Preprint)

“…It was measured using a scalable online measure with sound psychometric properties that had previously been developed independently of the creation of the training website. Its development and validation are described in detail in a separate publication [21] This included detailed blueprinting, state-of-the-art item writing, independent item review and initial field-testing, followed by formal Rasch analysis to test for good model fit. Strict criteria of unidimensionality were met by stepwise exclusion of misfitting items until there was no individual item misfitting at P < 0.01.…”