TeamSTEPPS in School Mental Health

NCT04440228 | Completed Results

• 1 other identifier: 834488
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 90
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety (TeamSTEPPS) is an evidence-based approach for teams that can be adapted for school mental health. TeamSTEPPS has been widely disseminated in health care settings with promising outcomes. TeamSTEPPS is designed to build competencies in the areas of leadership, situation monitoring, mutual support, and communication and has been associated with improvements in teamwork and communication as well as patient outcomes, such as decreased seclusion in psychiatric hospitals. This approach has yet to be extended as an implementation strategy in school or community mental health teams. If an evidence-based team approach like TeamSTEPPS can be successfully applied to school mental health teams, it could provide a cost-effective strategy for improving student mental health services and bolstering existing EBP implementation efforts, which to date generally have been insufficient in producing long-term clinician behavior change. In Aim 1 the investigators will capture key stakeholder perspectives about challenges in collocated school mental health services through formative work to inform collaborative planning and capacity building activities in Aim 2. Then, in Aim 2 the investigators will identify inter-organizational challenges and required components of TeamSTEPPS to adapt. The investigators will establish an advisory board and adapt TeamSTEPPS. The product of Aim 2 will be an adapted TeamSTEPPS, directed toward both school mental health and school-employed personnel, and specific, tailored implementation strategies to improve services in schools in conjunction with TeamSTEPPS. Finally, In Aim 3 the investigators will explore the feasibility, acceptability, and utility of TeamSTEPPS and the strategies generated in Aim 2 on inter-professional collaboration, teamwork, and student outcomes in eight schools.

Conditions

Child Behavior Problem; Multidisciplinary Communication; Interprofessional Relations

Keywords

school-based mental health; TeamSTEPPS

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (2)

• Feasibility of Intervention Measure (FIM)

  Reliable and validated 4-item tool to assess perceptions of the feasibility of an intervention (in this case, TeamSTEPPS training). Each item may be scored 1 = "completely disagree", 2 = "disagree", 3 = "neither agree nor disagree", 4 = "agree", or 5 = "completely agree." An overall mean score (possible score range from 1 to 5) across the 4 items is computed, where higher scores indicate more positive perceptions of intervention feasibility.

  assessed immediately post-training in TeamSTEPPS (on average, 4 hours after completion of baseline measures)

• Acceptability of Intervention Measure (AIM)

  Reliable and validated 4-item observational tool to assess perceptions of the acceptability of an intervention (in this case, TeamSTEPPS training). Each item may be scored 1 = "completely disagree", 2 = "disagree", 3 = "neither agree nor disagree", 4 = "agree", or 5 = "completely agree." An overall mean score (possible score range from 1 to 5) across the 4 items is computed, where higher scores indicate greater perceptions of intervention acceptability.

  assessed immediately post-training in TeamSTEPPS (on average, 4 hours after completion of baseline measures)

Secondary Outcomes (1)

• Oxford Non-Technical Skills (NOTECHS) Scale

  Assessed at baseline (i.e., on average, 1 week prior to training in TeamSTEPPS), immediately post-training in TeamSTEPPS (on average, 1 week after completion of baseline observation), and at 6- and 12-month follow-ups.

Other Outcomes (3)

• Expanded School Mental Health Collaboration Instrument (ESMHCI)

  Assessed at baseline (i.e., pre-training in TeamSTEPPS) and and at 6- and 12-month follow-ups. Six- and 12-month follow-up scores were averaged to create a single follow-up score.

• TeamSTEPPS Teamwork Perceptions Questionnaire (T-TPQ)

  Assessed at baseline (i.e., pre-training in TeamSTEPPS) and at 6- and 12-month follow-ups. Six- and 12-month follow-up scores were averaged to create a single follow-up score.

• TeamSTEPPS Teamwork Attitudes Questionnaire (T-TAQ)

  Assessed at baseline (i.e., pre-training in TeamSTEPPS) and at 6- and 12-month follow-ups. Six- and 12-month follow-up scores were averaged to create a single follow-up score.

Study Arms (1)

Schools implementing TeamSTEPPS

EXPERIMENTAL

Select schools will take a participatory approach to collaboratively identify solutions to challenges in collocated school-based mental health services based upon the feedback of stakeholders and use TeamSTEPPS to support mental health team-school collaboration.

Behavioral: TeamSTEPPS

Interventions

TeamSTEPPS BEHAVIORAL

TeamSTEPPS is an evidence-based approach for teams that can be adapted for school mental health. Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety (TeamSTEPPS), has been widely disseminated in health care settings with promising outcomes. TeamSTEPPS is designed to build competencies in the areas of leadership, situation monitoring, mutual support, and communication and has been associated with improvements in teamwork and communication as well as patient outcomes, such as decreased seclusion in psychiatric hospitals.

Schools implementing TeamSTEPPS

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years - 100 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: No
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• Must be one of the following: mental health providers, teachers, leaders from schools (e.g., principals), leaders from community mental health agencies (i.e., executive directors, clinical supervisors), and leadership personnel from the payer or partner school district.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Pennsylvania: lead

Study Sites (1)

University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19104, United States

Location

Related Publications (1)

• Kuriyan A, Kinkler G, Cidav Z, Kang-Yi C, Eiraldi R, Salas E, Wolk CB. Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety (TeamSTEPPS) to Improve Collaboration in School Mental Health: Protocol for a Mixed Methods Hybrid Effectiveness-Implementation Study. JMIR Res Protoc. 2021 Feb 8;10(2):e26567. doi: 10.2196/26567.

  PMID: 33555258 DERIVED

Results Point of Contact

• Title: Dr. Courtney Wolk
• Organization: University of Pennsylvania

courtney.wolk@pennmedicine.upenn.edu

215-746-6099

Study Officials

• Courtney Benjamin Wolk, PhD

  University of Pennsylvania

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Publication Agreements

• PI is Sponsor Employee: No
• Restrictive Agreement: No

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: NA
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: HEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH
• Intervention Model: SINGLE GROUP
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: June 8, 2020
• First Posted: June 19, 2020
• Study Start: May 23, 2022
• Primary Completion: April 30, 2024
• Study Completion: April 30, 2024
• Last Updated: November 12, 2025
• Results First Posted: November 12, 2025

Record last verified: 2025-10

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will share
• Shared Documents: STUDY PROTOCOL, SAP, ICF
• Time Frame: The descriptive data will be uploaded every six months during data collection periods of the study. All other data will be submitted at time of the publication of the manuscripts describing our main findings.
• Access Criteria: Any data directly shared with other investigators would entail a data-use agreement, signed by the research team, our system partners, and the individual(s) requesting data, and that accounts for (1) commitment to using the data only for research and as outlined and approved in the agreement; (2) IRB approval at the host institution, (3) a plan for securing the data using appropriate technology, and (4) an agreed upon plan to destroy or return the data upon completion. In such cases, we will make the data and associated documentation available to users under our own auspices, such as by sending an encrypted hard-drive to users.

Locations

US (1)