What Therapy Practices Do Providers Value in Youth Behavioral Health? A Measure Development Study

Existing measures of attitudes toward evidence-based practices (EBPs) assess attitudes toward manualized or research-based treatments. Providers of youth behavioral health ( N = 282) completed the Valued Practices Inventory (VPI), a new measure of provider attitudes toward specific practices for youth that avoids mention of EBPs by listing specific therapies—some of which are drawn from EBPs (e.g., problem solving) and some of which are not included in EBPs (e.g., dream interpretation). Exploratory factor analysis revealed two factors: practices derived from the evidence base (PDEB) and alternative techniques (AT). The PDEB scale was significantly correlated with scales on the Evidence-Based Practice Attitude Scale-50 (Aarons et al. in Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research , 39(5): 331–340, 2012 ), whereas the AT scale was not. Attitudes toward PDEB and AT were also related to provider characteristics such as years of experience and work setting. The VPI offers a complementary approach to existing measures of attitudes because it avoids mention of EBPs, which may help prevent biases in responses.