Faculty Reports About Training in Evidence-Based Practice and Empirically-Supported Treatments Across Mental Health Graduate Programs in the United States

Abstract

Evidence-based practice (EBP) and empirically-supported treatments (EST) are considered by many to be gold standards of care in the mental health field, and yet understanding of and use of the concepts lag behind their popularity. The current study sought to clarify the current state of training in EBP and EST across graduate mental health programs in the United States. Participants in the study were graduate instructors who taught first-year graduate students in mental health programs, (N = 540 teaching faculty; 320 masters, 220 doctoral). Three specific questions were analyzed, asking participants if they teach EBP, if they teach students how to read and evaluate randomized controlled trials, and asking what ESTs they teach. The majority of both masters- and doctoral-level faculty (masters= 90.2%; doctoral = 90.4%) reported teaching evidence-based practice. Doctoral-level faculty (74.6%) were significantly more likely to report teaching students how to read and evaluate randomized controlled trials than masters-level faculty (52.7%, n = 126; X² = 20.6, p < 0.001). Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and its counterparts were the most commonly reported, but even those were only reported by 60% of faculty. Many faculty reported techniques and concepts that were not ESTs. Graduate and undergraduate faculty should intentionally consider how to best prepare students to engage in EBP and EST.