Developing a measure of therapist adherence to contingency management: an application of the Many-Facet Rasch model

A unique application of the Many-Facet Rasch Model (MFRM) is introduced as the preferred method for evaluating the psychometric properties of a measure of therapist adherence to Contingency Management (CM) treatment of adolescent substance use. The utility of psychometric methods based in Classical Test Theory was limited by complexities of the data,,including: (1) ratings provided by multiple informants (i.e., youth, caregivers, and therapists), (2) data from separate research studies, (3) repeated measurements, (4) multiple versions of the questionnaire, and (5) missing data. Two dimensions of CM adherence were supported: adherence to Cognitive Behavioral components and adherence to monitoring components. The rating scale performed differently for items in these subscales, and of 11 items evaluated, eight were found to perform well. The MFRM is presented as a highly flexible approach that can be used to overcome the limitations of traditional methods in the development of adherence measures for evidence-based practices.