Analysis of FRAME data (A-FRAME): An analytic approach to assess the impact of adaptations on health services interventions and evaluations.

Introduction: Tracking adaptations during implementation can help assess and interpret outcomes. The framework for reporting adaptations and modifications-expanded (FRAME) provides a structured approach to characterize adaptations. We applied the FRAME across multiple health services projects, and developed an analytic approach to assess the impact of adaptations. Methods: Mixed methods analysis of research diaries from seven quality improvement (QI) and research projects during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the FRAME as a codebook, discrete adaptations were described and categorized. We then conducted a three-step analysis plan: (1) calculated the frequency of adaptations by FRAME categories across projects; (2) qualitatively assessed the impact of adaptations on project goals; and (3) qualitatively assessed relationships between adaptations within projects to thematically consolidate adaptations to generate more explanatory value on how adaptations influenced intervention progress and outcomes. Results: Between March and July 2020, 42 adaptations were identified across seven health services projects. The majority of adaptations related to training or evaluation (52.4%) with the goal of maintaining the feasibility (66.7%) of executing projects during the pandemic. Five FRAME constructs offered the most explanatory benefit to assess the impact of adaptations on program and evaluation goals, providing the basis for creating an analytic approach dubbed the "A-FRAME," analysis of FRAME data. Using the A-FRAME, the 42 adaptations were consolidated into 17 succinct adaptations. Two QI projects discontinued altogether. Intervention adaptations related to staffing, training, or delivery, while evaluation adaptations included design, recruitment, and data collection adjustments. Conclusions: By sifting qualitative data about adaptations into the A-FRAME, implementers and researchers can succinctly describe how adaptations affect interventions and their evaluations. The simple and concise presentation of information using the A-FRAME matrix can help implementers and evaluators account for the influence of adaptations on program outcomes.

"Never waste a good crisis": A qualitative study of the impact of COVID-19 on palliative care in seven hospitals using the Dynamic Sustainability Framework.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic led to rapid adaptations among palliative care services, but it is unclear how these adaptations vary in relation to their unique organizational contexts. AIM: Understand how the pandemic impacted the implementation of new and existing palliative care programs in diverse hospital systems using the Dynamic Sustainability Framework. DESIGN: Twelve in-depth interviews with 15 key informants representing palliative care programs from seven hospital systems between April and June 2020. SETTING: Public, not-for-profit private, community, and academic teaching hospitals in the San Francisco Bay Area with existing palliative care programs that were expanding services to new clinical areas (e.g. new outpatient clinic or community-based care). RESULTS: Six themes characterized how palliative care programs were impacted and adapted during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic: palliative care involvement in preparing for surge, increased emphasis on advance care planning, advocating for visitors for dying patients, providing emotional support to clinicians, adopting virtual approaches to care, and gaps in chaplaincy support. There was variation in how new and existing programs were able to adapt to early pandemic stresses; systems with new outpatient programs struggled to utilize their programs effectively during the crisis onset. CONCLUSIONS: The fit between palliative care programs and practice setting was critical to program resiliency during the early stages of the pandemic. Reconceptualizing the Dynamic Sustainability Framework to reflect a bidirectional relationship between ecological system, practice setting, and intervention levels might better guide implementers and researchers in understanding how ecological/macro changes can influence interventions on the ground.

Accessing behavioral health care during COVID: rapid transition from in-person to teleconferencing medical group visits.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Effective and safe behavioral health interventions in primary care are critical during pandemic and other disaster situations. California shelter-in-place orders necessitated rapid transition of an effective mindfulness-based medical group visit (MGV) program from in-person to videoconferenced sessions (VCSs). Aim: to Describe procedures, acceptability, and feasibility of converting from in-person to VCS. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Methods: qualitative. Dataset: primary care. Intervention: a six-session 2-h MGV program with educational and mindfulness components was converted. Four in-person sessions and two VCSs were held. General Anxiety Disorder and Patient Health Questionnaire-9 were administered at first and last sessions. A semi-structured focus group was conducted after session six. Population studied: six primary care patients (42 ± 11 years) with stress, anxiety, or depression participated. RESULTS: Procedural changes included remote material distribution, scheduling, hosting, and facilitation functions using the Zoom platform. The focus group revealed that patients preferred in-person sessions during initial visits, but appreciated transitioning to VCS, which provided continued support during a challenging time. Instruction on technical (e.g. logging on) and social (e.g. signaling next speaker) aspects of VCS was suggested. Building relationships through conversations was an important part before and after in-person sessions missing from VCS. Patients suggested combining in-person and VCS to allow relationship building while also improving access. CONCLUSION: While many procedural changes were needed to facilitate conversion to VCS, primary care patients seeking stress, anxiety, and depression interventions found VCS acceptable during COVID-19. Future iterations of this program are proposed which incorporate procedural changes and facilitate relationship building between patients in VCS.

Everybody's Doing It: Initiation to Prescription Drug Misuse.

In this article, we present findings from a qualitative National Institute on Drug Abuse-funded study of nonmedical prescription drug users in the San Francisco Bay Area. We interviewed young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 years, who used prescription drugs nonmedically at least 12 times in the 6 months prior to the interview. Employing Aker's Social Learning Theory and Zinberg's Drug, Set, and Setting, we explore the factors that contributed to participants' choices to begin using prescription drugs nonmedically. Social Learning Theory provides the framework for understanding how deviant behaviors are learned and imitated, while set and setting emphasizes the psychological and social contexts of initiation and the ways in which the set and setting of the initiating user were influenced by exposure, motivation, access, and setting. Together, social learning, and set and setting allow us to understand the interaction of individual and social factors contributing to nonmedical prescription drug use initiation.