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Optimizing behavioral health interventions with single-case designs: from development to dissemination

  • Essay/Opinion Piece
  • Published:
Translational Behavioral Medicine

Abstract

Over the past 70 years, single-case design (SCD) research has evolved to include a broad array of methodological and analytic advances. In this article, we describe some of these advances and discuss how SCDs can be used to optimize behavioral health interventions. Specifically, we discuss how parametric analysis, component analysis, and systematic replications can be used to optimize interventions. We also describe how SCDs can address other features of optimization, which include establishing generality and enabling personalized behavioral medicine. Throughout, we highlight how SCDs can be used during both the development and dissemination stages of behavioral health interventions.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to thank Paul Soto for comments on a previous draft of this manuscript. Preparation of this paper was supported in part by Grants P30DA029926 and R01DA023469 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Conflict of interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Florida, P. O. box 112250, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA

    Jesse Dallery Ph.D

  2. Department of Psychology, Rowan University, Glassboro, USA

    Bethany R Raiff Ph.D

Authors
  1. Jesse Dallery Ph.D
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  2. Bethany R Raiff Ph.D
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Correspondence to Jesse Dallery Ph.D.

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Implications

Practitioners: practitioners can use single-case designs in clinical practice to help ensure that an intervention or component of an intervention is working for an individual client or group of clients.

Policy makers: results from a single-case design research can help inform and evaluate policy regarding behavioral health interventions.

Researchers: researchers can use single-case designs to evaluate and optimize behavioral health interventions.

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Dallery, J., Raiff, B.R. Optimizing behavioral health interventions with single-case designs: from development to dissemination. Behav. Med. Pract. Policy Res. 4, 290–303 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13142-014-0258-z

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