Effectiveness of a professional development training program in increasing knowledge of mental health clinicians specializing in early psychosis.

AIM: For early psychosis services to be effective, it is essential to have staff that are trained in evidence-based interventions in this area. In this paper, we report on research undertaken by The Early Psychosis Prevention and Intervention Centre's Statewide Services (ESW) team. The focus was on assessing knowledge acquisition in early psychosis clinicians that had attended ESW's specialist training. METHODS: Between October 2012 and October 2017, data were collected from a large cohort of clinicians that had attended 46 ESW workshops covering topics identified in international guidelines as key components of early psychosis service provision. Participants were asked to complete between 3 and 11 pre- and post-workshop short answer and/or multiple choice questions that related to learning outcomes for the workshop. The percentage of correct responses before and after the workshop was compared for each participant, with a cumulative measure taken to provide information regarding knowledge acquisition across each workshop. RESULTS: Participant compliance was high (89.7%) with 962 completed questionnaires being collected from 1073 attendees across the workshops. Results showed that the ESW training led to a statistically significant increase in clinician knowledge from pre-training scores of 47.2% correct, to 83.5% correct answers at the conclusion of training (pre M = 47.2%, SD = 28.8; post M = 83.5%, SD = 23.7; t[890] = -35.66, P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Training that utilized adult learning principles had a strong focus on evidence-based interventions, and used clinical examples to embed core principles, led to a statistically significant increase in early intervention clinician knowledge.

Evaluation of a professional development training programme for mental health clinicians specializing in early psychosis.

The Early Psychosis Prevention and Intervention Centre Statewide Services (ESW) team provides training for multidisciplinary clinicians that specialise in early psychosis across the State of Victoria, Australia. The aim of this paper is to describe the 4-phase approach utilised by ESW to prepare for and deliver workshops, to report on participants' ratings of the ESW workshops, and to make recommendations for other trainers of early psychosis clinicians. Between March 2009 and September 2014, ESW provided 85 training workshops that had a strong focus on evidence-based approaches and international guidelines, and utilized clinical examples of early psychosis interventions. At the conclusion of each workshop, participants were asked to complete a questionnaire that comprised qualitative and quantitative elements. These assessed perceived trainer knowledge, learning, interactivity and specific topic feedback. The focus of this paper will be on describing the quantitative data resulting from these questionnaires. A total of 1708 clinicians provided feedback on the 85 workshops. There was a high level of compliance, with 83.0% of workshop participants completing the questionnaires. Feedback was positive across all areas, with the 2 areas that were most highly endorsed being that presenters "appeared to know their subject matter well" (endorsed by 98.4% of participants) and that "topics were explained well" (endorsed by 96.8% of participants). Training for early psychosis clinicians that focusses on core clinical topics, is well planned, incorporates feedback from previous training, and is based on adult learning principles, is likely to be effective and well received by early psychosis clinicians.