Factors Influencing School Psychologists’ “Willingness to Implement” Evidence-Based Interventions

Cognitive–behavioral interventions are effective in preventing and treating various child and adolescent mental health problems
and are useful components in treating pediatric medical disorders. Schools are viewed as important settings for providing
these services, and school psychologists have the potential to be key providers of these interventions. Unfortunately, implementation
levels are low. This preliminary investigation examined the relative contributions of personal beliefs about an intervention,
attitudes toward client problems, social factors, and organizational factors in school psychologists’ willingness to implement
cognitive–behavioral interventions. A national sample of 124 school psychologists completed a multidimensional self-report
measure of attitudes toward an intervention and the context for implementation after reading vignettes describing a client
problem (either depression or diabetes) and an intervention strategy (which either did, or did not, include the involvement
of the teacher). In addition to the particular client problem, beliefs about acceptability/efficacy of an intervention and
organizational resources for it were most important in predicting school psychologists’ implementation commitment.