Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment 2013;44(4):433–437
Buti, Allison L. | Eakins, Danielle | Fussell, Holly E. | Kunkel, Lynn E. | Kudura, Aisha | McCarty, Dennis
This is the Results Article for CTN-0044-A-1. The National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network (CTN) works to bridge the gap between research and practice and tested a web-delivered psychosocial intervention (the Therapeutic Education System, TES) in 10 community treatment centers. Computer-assisted therapies, such as web-delivered interventions, may improve the consistency and efficiency of treatment for alcohol and drug use disorders. Prior to the start of the study, researchers surveyed counselors (N=96) in participating treatment centers and assessed counselor attitudes, perceived social norms and intensions to use a web-delivered intervention. Analysis of the intention to adopt a web-delivered intervention assessed the influence of attitudes and perceived social norms. Perceived social norms were a significant contributor to clinician intention to adopt web-based interventions while attitude was not. Neither counselor characteristics (e.g., experience with other treatment techniques, gender, or age) nor organizational characteristics (e.g., size, years of operation) influenced clinicians' intention to implement a web-assisted treatment.
Conclusions: Computer-assisted interventions have the potential to standardize treatment, offer greater confidentiality, reach a wider range of patients, and reduce program costs and staff workload. While TES has numerous possible benefits, adoption of computer technology, especially in a field that is based on human interaction, is slow. Perceived social norms were the dominant predictor of intention. More research is needed on strategies to change perceived social norms.
Keywords: Adoption of interventions | Attitudes of health personnel | Behavior therapy | Counselors | CTN platform/ancillary study | Internet counseling | Therapeutic Education System (TES) | Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment (journal)
Document No: 911 ; PMID: 23021495 ; PMCID: PMC3541461
Submitted by: CTN Dissemination Librarians (10/2/2012)
