6361-6a

1

Implementing EBP in a Community Mental Health Setting

Walden University

SOCW-6311

09/08/2024

Implementing Evidence-Based Practice in a Community Mental Health Setting

Description of Practice Setting

The community mental health agency that I work for is an outpatient facility offering counseling, psychiatric services, and case management of mental health and substance abuse consumers. It works with a diverse clientele to provide physical and mental health services that are recovery- and resilience-oriented, individualized, and person-centered.

Comparison of the Characteristics of Study Conditions and Practice Setting

Thus, the EBP was examined in the controlled setting with sufficient support, staff knowledge, and a relatively more uniform patient sample than in the community facilities. On the other hand, my field agency operates under resource constraints, with high caseloads and a more diverse clientele regarding culture, language, and socioeconomic status. These differences may affect the successful deployment of the EBP. For example, the absence of procedural time for staff training and the requirement of culturally sensitive practices in population-diverse areas might delay the implementation of the practice and, subsequently, alter its impact (Pitsillidou et al.,2021).

The consequences of these differences include the existence of a time lag in the actualization of all the benefits of the EBP. Depending on the background of the patients, some cultures may need some changes to be made to the intervention to suit their culture; hence, they might need more time and other resources, which have yet to be considered in the study. Furthermore, the higher caseloads further translate to a high probability of a decrease in compliance with the practice, thereby minimizing the extent of practice adoption in the initial stages of implementing the change. Steps for Implementing the Evidence-Based Practice

Step 1: Initial Assessment and Staff Training

One of the first measures in planning the EBP implementation would be to conduct a practice analysis to identify the practice strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats and orient the staff to EBP (Dagne & Beshah, 2021).

Supporting Factors: Substantial support for enhancing patient care can be identified among the staff with good institutional commitment to utilizing evidence-based practices.

Limiting Factors: The staff may not embrace change, hence the necessity to readjust the affected services due to the heavy caseload, and may need more time to train on new technology.

Mitigation: To overcome these hurdles, training sessions are more fluid; they could be online or scheduled, for instance, after working hours. It may also be useful to engage staff in the planning process, and this way, they may also not resist change processes.

Step 2: Pilot Testing the EBP

Subsequently, a small group of clients should be recruited to undertake the study to determine the feasibility of implementing EBP (Powell et al.,2020).

• Supporting Factors: The agency's leaders recognize useful changes that can help get better client results.

• Limiting Factors: This is because the full implementation may be hampered by limited funding and resources during the first phases of implementation.

• Mitigation: A pilot that is on a smaller scale will enable the agency to get data about the efficacy of the intervention while at the same time not demanding a big up-front expenditure. Such data may then inform the implementation plan and refund in the event of need.

Step 3: Full Implementation

Once the pilot has been successfully implemented in some of these clients, it would then be replicated across all the clients of the EBP.

• Supporting Factors: The pilot complements a base on which the rest of the establishment can be persuaded to emulate, especially those who worked on the pilot phase of the practice.

• Limiting Factors: If the staff has heavy workloads, they may find it hard to follow the new practice because of the number of patients they are likely to handle.

• Mitigation: Tackling this would require the implementation of EBP on a phased basis, ensuring that workload is kept to doable levels and avails sufficient supervision and resources to staff members.

Expected Outcomes and or/Comparison to Research Findings

The consequences of implementing EBP in my field agency are expected to yield positive benefits in the treatment of clients, especially where the client presents with mental illnesses since this approach is likely to reduce the severity of the symptoms and, therefore, the medication required for these clients to recover. Nonetheless, I will agree that the study's findings will not be entirely similar to those found in my practice setting because of the agency's diverse population base and resource constraints. Although the study indicated good positive improvements, the modification of the structure of the EBP to accommodate the characteristics of a diverse culture and economy might take a longer period to implement, and in the short run, the results may vary.

Conclusion

Challenges associated with EBPs in a community mental health context are different, considering the extensive variation in the resources and patient characteristics between the study conditions and the implementing agency. Actually, by being very careful in choosing the tactics for implementing the EBP and by always considering possible barriers and finding possible ways how to remove such barriers, it will be possible to implement the EBP and optimize the client outcomes even though the timeline and the results may not be the same with the ones presented in the study.

References

Dagne, A. H., & Beshah, M. H. (2021). Implementation of evidence-based practice: The experience of nurses and midwives.  PloS one,  16(8), e0256600. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256600

Pitsillidou, M., Roupa, Z., Farmakas, A., & Noula, M. (2021). Factors Affecting the Application and Implementation of Evidence-based Practice in Nursing.  Acta informatica medica : AIM : journal of the Society for Medical Informatics of Bosnia & Herzegovina : casopis Drustva za medicinsku informatiku BiH,  29(4), 281–287. https://doi.org/10.5455/aim.2021.29.281-287

Powell, B. J., Haley, A. D., Patel, S. V., Amaya-Jackson, L., Glienke, B., Blythe, M., ... & Weinberger, M. (2020). Improving the implementation and sustainment of evidence-based practices in community mental health organizations: a study protocol for a matched-pair cluster randomized pilot study of the Collaborative Organizational Approach to Selecting and Tailoring Implementation Strategies (COAST-IS).  Implementation science communications,  1, 1–13. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s43058-020-00009-5