Barriers and facilitators to implementation of Cognitive Adaptation Training in long-term inpatient facilities for people diagnosed with severe mental illness: A nursing perspective

INTRODUCTION: Evidence-based interventions in psychiatry often fail to reach clinical practice. Cognitive Adaptation Training (CAT) is an evidence-based psychosocial intervention that aims to improve daily functioning of people diagnosed with a severe mental illness. Implementation of CAT remains challenging, despite demonstrated effectiveness.

AIM: Identifying facilitators and barriers of CAT on the intervention, nursing, and organizational levels, and investigating relationships between capability, opportunity, motivation, and appraisal using the COM-B model.

METHOD: The Measurement Instrument for Determinants of Innovations and CAT-specific questions were administered to 46 nurses. The relationship between capability, opportunity, motivation, and appraisal was calculated using the Pearson's r correlation coefficient.

RESULTS: Nine barriers (mostly organizational level) and 13 facilitators (mostly intervention and nursing level) were identified. Significant moderate correlations were found between capability and opportunity, capability and motivation, capability and appraisal, and a strong correlation between motivation and appraisal.

DISCUSSION: The results suggest that barriers at the organizational level should be removed and facilitators at intervention and nursing levels may be exploited to improve implementation.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Future implementation initiatives require ongoing training and supervision of CAT specialists, appointment of local champions to increase commitment among nursing staff, and inclusion and commitment of management to overcome organizational barriers.