The effectiveness of training rural mental health clinicians to treat disruptive behavior disorders.

Abstract

Statewide learning collaboratives have the potential to improve access to evidence-based psychotherapies for children and adolescents with disruptive behavior disorders (DBD) by improving knowledge and skills among mental health clinicians practicing in rural communities. We describe the effectiveness of using the CATIE learning collaborative to train Idaho-based mental health clinicians to treat DBD. Ninety-one clinicians completed a 6-month Coping Power Program (CPP) training course over a 2-year period. Improvement in clinician-reported self-efficacy and reported DBD patient-outcomes were observed. Ongoing benefit of learning collaboratives seems contingent on sustained engagement from local stakeholders. Recruitment and training clinicians beyond the grant-funded period were challenging. Public Health Significance StatementLimited access to evidence-based children's mental health services is disproportionately felt in rural parts of the U.S. Learning collaboratives are increasingly utilized to address this gap by training existing healthcare professionals to become more comfortable providing evidence-based mental health care. This study adds to existing literature by describing our experience with implementing a 2-year statewide learning collaborative in a large rural state and observed initial impact on patient care.

Provider perspectives on delivering telemental health services in rural North Carolina: Field report.

“…Although reimbursement privileges continue to evolve, there is little question that telehealth can circumvent many of the regular barriers to care individuals living in rural settings consistently experience including transportation issues, work and school conflicts, lack of childcare, and even confidentiality concerns. Provider perspectives can inform and refine the implementation of telehealth services to promote the availability, access, and acceptability of behavioral health services for all, including underserved communities (Jensen et al, 2020; Pullen et al, 2021; Saavedra et al, 2019; Shreck et al, 2020). These findings can help to facilitate and support telehealth implementation in underserved communities to promote the availability, access, and acceptability of behavioral health services for all during the pandemic and beyond.…”