34,696 research outputs found

    Doing research on the effectiveness of psychotherapy and psychotherapy training: a person-centered/experiential perspective

    Get PDF
    In this article, we present a framework for selecting instruments for evaluating psychotherapy and psychotherapy training from a person-centered and experiential psychotherapy (PCEP) perspective. The protocol is divided into eight therapy measurement domains, consisting of four research themes (therapy outcome, therapy process, client predictors, training outcome) and two levels (general/pan-theoretical concepts vs. treatment specific/PCEP-oriented concepts). This research protocol provides recommendations about what to measure, encouraging collaboration across different training sites, while still allowing flexibility for individual centers. Minimum and systematic case study data collection designs are described: Minimum designs are appropriate for use in private practice settings with one's own clients; systematic case-study designs can be used for student case-presentation requirements or for publication. The framework and research protocols described are part of an emerging international research project involving private and public training centers in several countries

    Recommendations to the Social Security Administration on the Design of the Mental Health Treatment Study

    Get PDF
    Many beneficiaries with mental illness who have a strong desire to work nevertheless continue to seek the protection and security of disability benefits, not only because of the income such benefits provide but also for the health care coverage that comes with it. Further complicating matters is that few jobs available to people with mental illnesses have mental health care coverage, forcing individuals to choose between employment and access to care. These barriers, coupled with the limited treatment options and negative employer attitudes and even discrimination when it comes to employing people with serious metal illness, help "explain" the very rates of low labor force participation among people with psychiatric disabilities

    Standardization of electroencephalography for multi-site, multi-platform and multi-investigator studies: Insights from the canadian biomarker integration network in depression

    Get PDF
    Subsequent to global initiatives in mapping the human brain and investigations of neurobiological markers for brain disorders, the number of multi-site studies involving the collection and sharing of large volumes of brain data, including electroencephalography (EEG), has been increasing. Among the complexities of conducting multi-site studies and increasing the shelf life of biological data beyond the original study are timely standardization and documentation of relevant study parameters. We presentthe insights gained and guidelines established within the EEG working group of the Canadian Biomarker Integration Network in Depression (CAN-BIND). CAN-BIND is a multi-site, multi-investigator, and multiproject network supported by the Ontario Brain Institute with access to Brain-CODE, an informatics platform that hosts a multitude of biological data across a growing list of brain pathologies. We describe our approaches and insights on documenting and standardizing parameters across the study design, data collection, monitoring, analysis, integration, knowledge-translation, and data archiving phases of CAN-BIND projects. We introduce a custom-built EEG toolbox to track data preprocessing with open-access for the scientific community. We also evaluate the impact of variation in equipment setup on the accuracy of acquired data. Collectively, this work is intended to inspire establishing comprehensive and standardized guidelines for multi-site studies

    Evidence-based service modules for a sustained home visiting program

    Get PDF
    The Centre for Community Child Health (CCCH) at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute and the Royal Children’s Hospital has undertaken two literature reviews to inform the design of a sustained home visiting program for vulnerable families with young children; the program is now known as \u27right@home\u27. This project is being led by a collaboration between three organisations: The Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY), CCCH, and the University of New South Wales. The first literature review undertaken by CCCH (Sustained home visiting for vulnerable families and children: A review of effective programs (McDonald et al., 2012) (hereon in referred to as the Home visiting review of effective programs) sought to answer the question ‘what works in home visiting programs?’ The conclusion reached was that it was not possible to answer the question definitively, either because the evidence regarding the ‘components’ of home visiting programs is contradictory or contested, or the evidence is not available. As the home visiting review of effective programs focused on what was delivered (ie. the efficacy of different manualised programs), rather than how services were delivered (ie. the effect of the manner in which services were delivered and the nature of the relationships established between service providers and parents), a second literature review was undertaken: Sustained home visiting for vulnerable families and children: A literature review of effective processes and strategies (Moore et al., 2012) (hereon in referred to as the Home visiting review of effective processes and strategies). The home visiting review of effective processes and strategies identified converging evidence from a number of sources to support the idea that the process aspects of service delivery matter for outcomes – how services are provided is as important as what is provided. A number of key elements of effective service delivery processes have been repeatedly identified in the research literature and these represent the threshold features or bedrock on which all services should be based: if services are not delivered in accordance with these process features, then efforts to change people’s behaviour will be less effective (Moore et al., 2012). The evidence also indicated that the identification of goals, and of strategies to achieve these goals, needs to be done in partnership with parents. However, while the ultimate choice of strategies should be made by parents, the strategies on offer used must be evidence-based. Therefore, service providers should be able to draw on a suite of evidence-based strategies to address the range of challenges that parents face in caring for their children (Moore et al., 2012). In the light of the findings of this second literature review, it was decided that the right@home home visiting program would not involve the delivery of a manualised program. Rather, service delivery would be based on the processes of effective engagement and partnership, while the content of the program would take two forms: standard modules that are delivered to all participants, and e.g. information on the stages of child development), and evidence-based ‘service modules’ (i.e. specific strategies) that could be deployed to address issues that are of particular concern to individual parents.  Related identifer: ISSN 2204-340

    Using Provenance to support Good Laboratory Practice in Grid Environments

    Get PDF
    Conducting experiments and documenting results is daily business of scientists. Good and traceable documentation enables other scientists to confirm procedures and results for increased credibility. Documentation and scientific conduct are regulated and termed as "good laboratory practice." Laboratory notebooks are used to record each step in conducting an experiment and processing data. Originally, these notebooks were paper based. Due to computerised research systems, acquired data became more elaborate, thus increasing the need for electronic notebooks with data storage, computational features and reliable electronic documentation. As a new approach to this, a scientific data management system (DataFinder) is enhanced with features for traceable documentation. Provenance recording is used to meet requirements of traceability, and this information can later be queried for further analysis. DataFinder has further important features for scientific documentation: It employs a heterogeneous and distributed data storage concept. This enables access to different types of data storage systems (e. g. Grid data infrastructure, file servers). In this chapter we describe a number of building blocks that are available or close to finished development. These components are intended for assembling an electronic laboratory notebook for use in Grid environments, while retaining maximal flexibility on usage scenarios as well as maximal compatibility overlap towards each other. Through the usage of such a system, provenance can successfully be used to trace the scientific workflow of preparation, execution, evaluation, interpretation and archiving of research data. The reliability of research results increases and the research process remains transparent to remote research partners.Comment: Book Chapter for "Data Provenance and Data Management for eScience," of Studies in Computational Intelligence series, Springer. 25 pages, 8 figure
    • …
    corecore