Clinician Knowledge of and Attitudes Toward Guided Self-Help

• Published in: Behavior therapy 2024-09, Vol.55 (5), p.922-934
• Main Authors: Plasencia, Maribel, Farris, Samantha G., Wilson, G. Terence
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; anxiety disorders; Attitude of Health Personnel; eating disorders; Evidence-Based Practice; Female; guided self-help; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Humans; knowledge and attitudes; Male; Middle Aged; mood disorders; Self Care - methods; Self Care - psychology
• ISSN: 0005-7894; 1878-1888; 1878-1888
• DOI: 10.1016/j.beth.2024.01.006

•We assessed clinician attitudes toward the use of guided self-help (GSH)•A minority of clinicians had ever used or received training in GSH.•Given a mock patient with moderate symptoms, likelihood of GSH use was 53.62%•Openness to evidence-based practices and prior GSH use predicted hypothetical use.•Lack of training was a frequently endorsed barrier to GSH use. The current study evaluated knowledge of and attitudes toward guided self-help (GSH) among clinicians who use evidence-based practices to treat one or more of the following: panic disorder, major depressive disorder, bulimia nervosa, binge-eating disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder. A total of 153 of 256 individuals recruited online and at professional conferences were eligible. This study assessed prior experience with and knowledge of GSH, as well as hypothetical use with a mock patient. Less than 20% of clinicians had ever used GSH, and fewer had used it as a stand-alone treatment. Given a mock patient reporting moderate symptoms, clinicians indicated a 53.62% likelihood that they would use GSH. Exploratory analyses indicated that hypothetical use was predicted by prior use of GSH as well as the Openness subscale of the Evidence-Based Practice Attitude Scale. Study findings suggest that clinicians using evidence-based practices do not uniformly know of or endorse the use of GSH. Lack of training in GSH was one of the most frequently endorsed barriers to implementing GSH in clinical practice (n = 99, 64%). These findings have implications for the use of therapy formats that scale evidence-based treatments in the United States.