Employing behavioral methods to improve the context of care in a public psychiatric hospital: Realizing improvements in the interpersonal behavior of direct-care providers Original Research Article

Many behaviorally trained scientist-practitioners have noted the poor utilization of behavioral technology in inpatient psychiatric treatment settings. However, few studies have examined how behavior change skills can be applied to address this organizational behavior problem. This article outlines a series of projects to develop and implement a training program for direct-care psychiatric staff in the use of behavioral methods in their daily staff-patient interactions. It outlines not only the strategy of program development and implementation but also the organizational issues that enhanced its implementation over time. A variety of organizational behavior change considerations are discussed. The authors emphasize that behavioral methods have value not only for improving direct patient care but also for improving the support for such efforts within the organization. The importance of applying behavior change skills to organizational behavior to improve the context of care is discussed.