The research-practice gap in child mental health services: The case of parenting interventions in a Canadian community

A failure to base practice on research findings may undermine the expected benefits from health and human services offered in the community. This dissertation explores research-practice gaps within the child mental health field by exploring parenting interventions adopted within a Canadian community. Three different inquiries are employed to explore different aspects of the research-practice gap: (i) an examination of the empirical evidence supporting parenting interventions offered in the study community, (ii) an exploration of wiry these interventions were adopted, and (iii) a consideration of the concepts underlying the research-practice gap construct. Each inquiry has a different philosophical underpinning and employs a different vantage point, research approach, author's stance, and research method. The first inquiry identifies a marked tendency to adopt interventions that have undergone little rigorous evaluation, rather than adopting ones supported by research evidence. The second inquiry concludes that although research evidence is valued, other factors such as resource availability and the fit of the intervention with the perceived needs of the target population, as well as the mandate of the local decision-maker and associated agency, appear to take precedence over research evidence. The third inquiry, drawing on the analogy of the "two communities," finds that the experience of pressure to provide services under resource-restricted conditions in the Real World appears to be a key dynamic in lowering the threshold of acceptable evidence below that of Academia. Insights derived from these three inquiries taken together provide some foundation for moving the dialogue on the research-practice gap forward with the ultimate goal of improving the impact of health and human services offered in the community.