Making the case
for psychological interventions
BY DR. KATHERINE C. NORDAL • EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
At its February 2010 meeting, the APA Council approved strategic planning
funding for the development of treatment guidelines and the appointment
of an Advisory Steering Committee, which is chaired by Steven D. Hollon,
PhD. The association has continued to move forward with this important
collaboration between our Practice and Science Directorates to develop
what we are now calling Clinical Practice Guidelines, to align
our terminology with the rest of the health-care industry. These
guidelines are important for our discipline in the evolving
health-care system with its emphasis on evidence-based care,
provider accountability and improved patient outcomes.
We hope psychologists will recognize the value of
clinical practice guidelines for the profession, for them as
practitioners and for their patients. Psychology values the
integration of science and practice as evidenced in many APA
policies as well as clinical training models. With thousands
of articles published per year, clinical practice guidelines are
a means of bridging science and the practice of psychology
through the synthesis of literature and patterns in findings.
Guidelines are also a way to ensure that scientific evidence
about psychological interventions is available to policy
makers, other health-care providers and payers.
APA’s Advisory Steering Committee of nine members has
been hard at work for the past two years in developing APA’s
process for creating clinical practice guidelines in alignment
with emerging standards in health care. The Advisory
Steering Committee is developing a Manual of Procedures
for guidelines development to describe the process APA
is following, based on current standards described by the
Institute of Medicine.
Topic-specific expert panels are being appointed to
determine the scope of a systematic review, interpret the
results of the review and draw recommendations. The panels
for depressive disorders, obesity and post-traumatic stress
disorder have been appointed, and the panel for depressive
disorders has had its first meeting. APA is committed to
recognizing and reviewing a breadth of perspectives and
the involvement of stakeholders, including patients, in its
guidelines development process.
For more information about the clinical practice
guidelines development process, visit the APA Clinical
Practice Guidelines Development page. As always, I
encourage you to email me with your questions, concerns or
ideas at katherinenordalphd@apa.org. n
