Feasibility of the Back2School Intervention in the Finnish Context : A Transdiagnostic Cognitive-Behavioral Intervention for School Attendance Problems

Abstract

School attendance problems (SAPs) is a heterogeneous clinical phenomenon with a wide variety of associated etiologies, symptoms, and perpetuating factors. Most existing intervention manuals based on cognitive behavioral therapy are specific to a certain type of SAP. Due to this heterogeneity, transdiagnostic interventions have been recommended, to target the entire spectrum of SAP with the same manual. This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of Back2School (B2S), a transdiagnostic and modular cognitive behavioral therapy intervention for school attendance problems in a Finnish context. The sample consisted of 16 families distributed over 5 clinicians who received training in the B2S manual. We evaluated four different parameters: sample characteristics, data collection procedures and outcome measures, treatment satisfaction and acceptability, and treatment effects. The results showed that the treatment effects were not replicated to the same extent as the original study due to differences in sample characteristics, with the sample in this study being relatively high functioning on many important clinical variables. However, self-report measures and qualitative data indicated high treatment satisfaction among all respondent groups. The study found a higher degree of missing data, compared to the original study, due to more complex data collection procedures, highlighting the need for future studies to digitize data collection to reduce workload and increase the proportion of collected data. We also recommend changing the recruitment process and inclusion criteria to ensure a more representative sample to evaluate with stronger scientific rigor the effect of Back2School on school attendance problems.