A new tool to assess treatment fidelity and evaluation of treatment fidelity across 10 years of health behavior research.

TLDR

A framework for enhancing treatment fidelity of health behavior interventions was previously developed in 2004. The study aimed to develop a treatment fidelity measure and apply it to evaluate fidelity in articles from five journals over a decade. The authors used the framework to create the measure and then assessed 342 articles for use of fidelity strategies. Of 342 articles, 22% reported provider skill maintenance, 27% protocol adherence checks, 35% manual use, 54% used none, 12% used all three, with a mean adherence of .55 and 15.5% achieving ≥.80. Authors: A.

Abstract

A. Bellg, B. Borrelli, et al. (2004) previously developed a framework that consisted of strategies to enhance treatment fidelity of health behavior interventions. The present study used this framework to (a) develop a measure of treatment fidelity and (b) use the measure to evaluate treatment fidelity in articles published in 5 journals over 10 years. Three hundred forty-two articles met inclusion criteria; 22% reported strategies to maintain provider skills, 27% reported checking adherence to protocol, 35% reported using a treatment manual, 54% reported using none of these strategies, and 12% reported using all 3 strategies. The mean proportion adherence to treatment fidelity strategies was .55; 15.5% of articles achieved greater than or equal to .80. This tool may be useful for researchers, grant reviewers, and editors planning and evaluating trials.