Forty Years of Engagement Research in Children’s Mental Health Services: Multidimensional Measurement and Practice Elements
Abstract
Poor engagement in child and adolescent mental health services is a significant public health concern. The purpose of this study was to synthesize the engagement literature using a multidimensional measurement framework to identify practice elements that are associated with improved engagement. We examined 50 randomized controlled trials of interventions targeting treatment engagement in youth mental health services published between 1974 and 2016. We utilized a multidimensional measurement framework that includes five engagement domains (i.e., Relationship, Expectancy, Attendance, Clarity, Homework [REACH]). We also used a distillation method (Chorpita & Daleiden, 2009; Chorpita, Daleiden, & Weisz, 2005) to identify specific practices common to interventions that were effective at increasing engagement within each REACH domain. Engagement was most frequently operationalized in intervention studies as Attendance. Individual practices distilled from effective interventions were successful when used with participants with diverse characteristics in a wide variety of contexts. Importantly, we found unique practice patterns associated with outcomes from each REACH domain. Findings suggest that practices such as assessment, psychoeducation, accessibility promotion, barriers to treatment, and goal setting might be used with all youth and families to promote engagement and that other practices could be introduced on an as-needed basis to target specific engagement domains (e.g., mod…
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Converging evidence across developmental stages suggests that motivational enhancement techniques are well-suited for improving socially anxious adults' beliefs about and intentions toward seeking treatment.
“Thus, converging evidence across developmental stages suggests that motivational enhancement techniques are well-suited for the task of improving socially anxious adults' beliefs about and intentions toward seeking treatment.”
From A Randomized Trial of Brief Online Interventions to Facilitate Treatment Seeking for Social Anxiety. (2022) · cites this paper as Becker et al., 2018
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“To accurately evaluate experimental treatment efficacy, it is essential to know how well adolescents and families engaged with both the experimental and the control/comparison interventions (Becker et al., 2018).”
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A Randomized Trial of Brief Online Interventions to Facilitate Treatment Seeking for Social Anxiety.
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“Likewise, motivational enhancement was indicated as a frequent component of interventions that improved youths and adolescents’ expectations of treatment (Becker et al., 2018).”
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- Authors
- Becker, K. D., Boustani, M., Gellatly, R., & Chorpita, B. F.
- Affiliations
- University of Maryland, Baltimore (US)
- University of California, Los Angeles (US)
- Corresponding author
- Becker, Kimberly D.
- Venue
- Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2017-06-02
- Volume
- 47
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1-23
- ISSN
- 1537-4416 (ISSN-L)
- 1537-4424
- OpenAlex
- W2621295489
- Cited by
- 234
- References
- 16
- Citations by year
- 2026: 16 · 2025: 25 · 2024: 54 · 2023: 23 · 2022: 34 · 2021: 24 · 2020: 29 · 2019: 18 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 19.62
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- none (none)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health Treatment and Access
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Keywords
- treatment engagement, child and adolescent mental health services, multidimensional measurement, distillation, psychoeducation, homework, goal setting, barriers to treatment, therapist-family relationship
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Child, Female, Humans, Male, Mental Health Services, Research, Time Factors
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