Using Treatment Integrity Methods to Study the Implementation Process

Clin Psychol Sci Prac 18: 36–40, 2011] The last decade has witnessed increased interest in the implementation and dissemination of evidence‐based treatments (EBTs) for youth. Nakamura et al. (2011) detail lessons learned over the past decade from the large‐scale implementation of EBTs for children in Hawaii. This commentary discusses how lessons from Hawaii’s initiative can help inform the next generation of implementation research. Specifically, we focus on how treatment integrity models and methods designed to characterize core aspects of treatment delivery can be used to study the implementation process. Using the new interactive online reporting systems developed by Nakamura et al. to collect treatment integrity data offers researchers a way to determine how best to implement EBTs in community‐based service settings with integrity and skill.