Friday, June 22, 2018

Implementation Research: Embracing Practitioners' Views

Feuerstein, J. L., Olswang, L. B., Greenslade, K. J., Dowden, P., Pinder, G. L., & Madden, J. (2018). Implementation research: Embracing practitioners' views. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 61(3), 645-657.

Implementation research is an active approach that bridges the gap between research and clinical practice. A core component of implementation research is the partnerships created between clinicians and researchers. These partnerships are established to help support the creation and uptake of new or changing clinical practices. Clinicians have insight into what is sustainable in clinical practice as well as other client and family specific preferences. Whereas researchers have knowledge about the specifics of the assessment and therapy protocols, and dosage requirements. Feuerstein et al. (2018) adopted an implementation research approach to gather clinicians’ opinions on a triadic gaze intervention (shifting eye gaze between a desired object and a parent) used to show communicative intent for children with moderate to severe motor delays.


Clinicians (occupational therapists, physiotherapists, and speech-language pathologists) were trained on the assessment and therapy protocols for a Triadic Gaze Intervention (TGI). Researchers were interested in (1) the clinicians’ knowledge and beliefs about early intervention, (2) the acceptability: how closely the clinicians’ view of early intervention aligned with the TGI and feasibility: facilitators and barriers to implementing the TGI protocols in practice, and (3) the feasibility of the clinician training for the TGI.  To answer these questions, two focus groups were conducted before and after the clinicians completed training and implemented the protocol with one client. Both focus groups were recorded and transcribed. Common emerging themes were coded to answer the questions posed by the researchers.


The clinicians reported that the TGI closely aligned with their views of early intervention. The TGI assessment, therapy, and training protocols had high acceptability and feasibility amongst the clinicians. As a result of the partnerships between clinicians and researchers, the researchers were able to gain insight into how the therapy and training should be adapted to better serve clinicians and families. More feedback throughout clinician training and a caregiver coaching model were two suggestions voiced by clinicians. Ultimately, this research demonstrates the importance of clinician-researcher partnerships to improve the integration of research into clinical practice.


Blogger: Meghan Vollebregt is a student in the combined SLP MSc/PhD program working under the supervision of Lisa Archibald.