Scaling up psychological treatments: A countrywide test of the online training of therapists

Background: a major barrier to the widespread dissemination of psychological treatments is the way that therapists are trained. the current method is not scalable. objective: our objective was to conduct a proof-of-concept study of web-centered training,a scalable online method for training therapists. methods: the irish health service executive identified mental health professionals across the country whom it wanted to be trained in a specific psychological treatment for eating disorders. these therapists were given access to a web-centered training program in transdiagnostic cognitive behavior therapy for eating disorders. the training was accompanied by a scalable form of support consisting of brief encouraging telephone calls from a nonspecialist. the trainee therapists completed a validated measure of therapist competence before and after the training. results: of 102 therapists who embarked upon the training program,86 (84.3%) completed it. there was a substantial increase in their competence scores following the training (mean difference 5.84,95% cl-6.62 to-5.05; p<.001) with 42.5% (34/80) scoring above a predetermined cut-point indicative of a good level of competence. conclusions: web-centered training proved feasible and acceptable and resulted in a marked increase in therapist competence scores. if these findings are replicated,web-centered training would provide a means of simultaneously training large numbers of geographically dispersed trainees at low cost,thereby overcoming a major obstacle to the widespread dissemination of psychological treatments.