Choices in Treatment Integrity:Considering the Protocol and Consultant Recommendations in Child and Adolescent Therapy

Codifying a complex treatment intervention into a manual necessarily involves simplifying procedures, possibly resulting in developer and expert adaptations that align with but are not fully consistent with the manualized content. This study evaluated the integrity of an evidence-based treatment to two information sources (i.e., an expert consultant and the treatment manual) within youth community mental health settings. Consultant recommendations were compared with manual-prescribed therapy procedures, which identified instances of agreement between the sources as well as consultant adaptations. To determine clinicians’ integrity to each source, clinician-reported therapy procedures were compared with consultant recommendations and manual prescriptions. Participants consisted of 30 clinicians, five consultants, and 78 youths (53% male; M age = 9.73 years, SD = 2.84; 81% Latino). Findings indicated that consultants generally recommended content from the manual but also made frequent adaptations that invol...