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Design Elements in Implementation Research: A Structured Review of Child Welfare and Child Mental Health Studies

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Abstract

Implementation science is an emerging field of research with considerable penetration in physical medicine and less in the fields of mental health and social services. There remains a lack of consensus on methodological approaches to the study of implementation processes and tests of implementation strategies. This paper addresses the need for methods development through a structured review that describes design elements in nine studies testing implementation strategies for evidence-based interventions addressing mental health problems of children in child welfare and child mental health settings. Randomized trial designs were dominant with considerable use of mixed method designs in the nine studies published since 2005. The findings are discussed in reference to the limitations of randomized designs in implementation science and the potential for use of alternative designs.

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Acknowledgments

Support for this manuscript was provided by the following grants: P30 MH074678, DA019984, MH040859, DA024370, P30 MH068579, and MH080916.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Child and Adolescent Services Research Center (CASRC), Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego, 3020 Children’s Way, MC 5033, San Diego, CA, 92123, USA

    John Landsverk & Jennifer Rolls Reutz

  2. Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA

    C. Hendricks Brown

  3. School of Social Work, University of Southern California and Child and Adolescent Services, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Lawrence Palinkas

  4. Department of Pediatrics and the Centers for Health Policy and Primary Care and Outcomes Research, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Sarah McCue Horwitz

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  1. John Landsverk
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  2. C. Hendricks Brown
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  3. Jennifer Rolls Reutz
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  4. Lawrence Palinkas
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  5. Sarah McCue Horwitz
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Correspondence to John Landsverk.

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Landsverk, J., Brown, C.H., Rolls Reutz, J. et al. Design Elements in Implementation Research: A Structured Review of Child Welfare and Child Mental Health Studies. Adm Policy Ment Health 38, 54–63 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10488-010-0315-y

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