Pilot Evaluation of Brief Training in CBT for Primary Care Practitioners

Mental health work is now core to primary care practice, and CBT shows promise as a guiding approach. However, dissemination to primary care practitioners has not yet been demonstrated. A training intervention (a brief CPD workshop of 3-4 hours) plus four case discussion groups lasting 1.5 hours each, plus manual, was evaluated with a convenience sample of N = 25 primary care practitioners. Five adapted self-report questionnaires measured their reactions, learning, and transfer, within a pre-post research design. The participants regarded the training and materials as acceptable. Their performance on declarative and procedural quizzes improved significantly by the post-test, as did their reported transfer of CBT to their primary care work. These positive findings indicate that the training package may be able to produce transferable impacts on primary care practitioners' use of CBT. But the reliance on self-report and the simple design preclude definitive conclusions. Suggestions for an improved research design are offered, together with suggestions on dissemination.