A Recipe for Assessing Fidelity in Family and Health Systems

• Main Authors: Polaha, Jodi, Smith, J. D., Sunderji, Nadiya
• Published: Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University 2019
• Subjects: fidelity; family; health systems; Family Medicine
• Online Access: https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/6756; https://doi.org/10.1037/fsh0000421

Following recipes is an analogy for maintaining intervention integrity, or, fidelity. Fidelity is the extent to which an intervention is implemented as intended. This editorial presents a recipe for assessing fidelity in family and health systems. The author discusses the challenges posed by the complex recipes of families and health systems interventions, in both research and clinical practice. The author concludes that increasing the measurement and reporting of fidelity is paramount in the exploding literature around family and health systems research. Researchers and practice improvement champions must find ways to assess fidelity or its proximal indicators and work to innovate new, more efficient methods that allow for ubiquitous fidelity assessment and monitoring systems, ensuring the best care for the families and system stakeholders they serve.