1 - (DICEC) Reported Community Engagement Elements in Submissions to the ABCT Annual Convention

ABCT's Dissemination & Implementation Community Engagement Committee

ABCT has a longstanding commitment to promoting wellness and alleviating human suffering. It has sought to fulfill this vision by supporting treatment development and training opportunities; promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion; attending to dissemination and implementation issues; and improving community mental health. These efforts align with larger calls to action across disciplines for increasing various community-engaged research approaches. In 2022, ABCT began piloting an assessment of community engagement (ComEng) in conference presentation submissions: a question (not included in scoring) about community involvement, roles in study participation, research design, rollout or implementation, review, and co-authorship. This analysis aims to: describe community engagement across submissions, explore community engagement by submission type and acceptance, and investigate moderation of community engagement and submission acceptance by submission type.

The sample (N=413) comprised clinical round tables, panel discussions, spotlight research presentations, and symposia submitted to the ABCT 58th Annual Convention in 2024. Poster sessions and clinical grand rounds were excluded due to the absence of ComEng questions from the submission process and insufficient sample size for analyses, respectively. ComEng was assessed via binary endorsement (i.e., at least one type of ComEng), sum (0-5 scale) of ComEng strategies (e.g., score of 2 = community members were participants, helped with rollout/implementation), and individual ComEng strategies.

Overall, 81% of submissions endorsed at least one type of ComEng (M=1.7 items, SD = 1.4), mainly through the involvement of study participants or clinicians (286; 69.2%). Symposia were more likely to involve ComEng (X² = 24.6, p < .001), while clinical round tables (X² = 7.5, p < .01) and panel discussions (X² = 8.7, p < .01) endorsed less. Accepted submissions trended toward higher endorsement of at least one type of ComEng (X² = 3.6, p = .06), and were more likely to endorse community members as study participants or clinicians (X² = 5.3, p < .02). Submission type did not moderate ComEng and acceptance (interaction effect: B = 0.1, p = 0.7).

Limitations include reliance on self-reported data, exclusion of posters, a focus on only 2024 submissions, and exclusion of dissemination efforts. Common barriers (e.g., establishing new partnerships) and recommendations for ABCT (e.g., longitudinal tracking of ComEng in ABCT convention submissions) and research, broadly, will be discussed.