In plain language
Mental health services invest heavily in staff training, yet new evidence-based practices often fail to make it from the training room into everyday work. Self-determination theory offers a clue as to why: people sustain behaviour change best when the change feels self-generated (autonomous) rather than imposed by an employer. This study asked whether a structured values clarification exercise — helping workers connect a new practice to their own deeply held values — could increase autonomous motivation to actually use the practice.
One hundred and forty-six mental health workers received training in evidence-based recovery practices and were then assigned, via cluster randomisation, to either a values clarification condition (79 workers) or an active control condition focused on problem-solving and implementation planning (67 workers). Motivation and plans to implement the new practices were measured before and after the intervention.
Workers who completed the values exercise showed a significantly greater increase in integrated motivation — the sense that using the new practice expresses who they are and what they care about — and stronger plans to implement the newly trained practices, compared with the control group. Moreover, integrated motivation was the only form of motivation that uniquely predicted implementation plans after the intervention. The findings suggest a simple, reproducible way for organisations to support staff autonomy and improve the odds that training translates into practice.
Key findings
- 146 mental health workers were cluster-randomised to a values clarification condition (n = 79) or an active problem-solving/implementation-planning control (n = 67) following training in recovery-oriented practices.
- The values clarification group showed a significantly greater increase in integrated motivation for the newly trained practice than the control group (F[1,129] = 6.67, p < .05).
- The values group also reported significantly greater growth in plans to implement the newly trained practices (F[1,129] = 4.80, p < .05).
- Controlling for baseline plans, integrated motivation was the only motivation variable that uniquely predicted implementation plans at follow-up.
- Change in integrated motivation correlated positively with change in implementation plans (r = .26), whereas changes in introjected (r = −.26) and extrinsic motivation (r = −.20) correlated negatively with implementation plans.
- A structured values clarification exercise offers a specific, reproducible method of autonomy support for workplace behaviour change (trial registration: ACTRN12613000353796).
How to cite
APA
Williams, V., Deane, F. P., Oades, L. G., Crowe, T. P., Ciarrochi, J., & Andresen, R. (2016). A cluster-randomised controlled trial of values-based training to promote autonomously held recovery values in mental health workers. Implementation Science, 11, Article 13. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-015-0363-5
BibTeX
@article{williams2016cluster,
title = {A cluster-randomised controlled trial of values-based training to promote autonomously held recovery values in mental health workers},
author = {Williams, Virginia and Deane, Frank P. and Oades, Lindsay G. and Crowe, Trevor P. and Ciarrochi, Joseph and Andresen, Retta},
journal = {Implementation Science},
year = {2016},
volume = {11},
pages = {13},
doi = {10.1186/s13012-015-0363-5}
}
Related work
- All publications by Joseph Ciarrochi (searchable, with free PDFs)
- Process-Based Therapy & Idionomic Analysis
Author: Joseph Ciarrochi (ORCID 0000-0003-0471-8100). Free copy hosted with permission for scholarly use. Please cite the published version via the DOI above.