Group psychoeducation facilitator competency measure
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Evaluating a measure of facilitator competency for the delivery of group psychoeducation for anxiety and depression in the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies Service (IAPT)
IRAS ID
293765
Contact name
Stephen Kellett
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
The University of Sheffield
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
N/A, N/A
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
IAPT services use brief group treatment formats (6 sessions) for patients with mild to moderate anxiety and depression as part of early steps of the stepped care model. Therefore, many patients are treated in such psychoeducational groups. Preliminary research within the field suggests that group facilitator competency skills could be one key reason that creates positive group treatment outcomes. However, despite the increase in popularity of these groups within IAPT services, no reliable or valid measure for the competency of group facilitatation exists. Therefore, the multitude of IAPT services using group formats are unable to measure or regulate the delivery of this intervention. Therefore, this project aims to evaluate the reliability and validity of a competency measure to assess the skilfulness of facilitators delivering IAPT psychoeducational groups. This will be done by filming group sessions (electronically via MS Teams) and asking expert raters to rate clips of the facilitators. Service users of the groups will also be asked to rate the facilitators, utilsing a sister version of the expert raters measure. Competency of facilitators will then be used to predict dropout, outcomes and satisfaction.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - South Yorkshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/YH/0058
Date of REC Opinion
17 May 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion