A review of research on fidelity of implementation: implications for drug abuse prevention in school settings

To help inform drug abuse prevention research in school settings about the issues surrounding implementation, we conducted a review of the fidelity of implementation research literature spanning a 25-year period. Fidelity has been measured in five ways: (1) adherence, (2) dose, (3) quality of program delivery, (4) participant responsiveness and (5) program differentiation. Definitions and measures of fidelity were found not to be consistent across studies, and new definitions are proposed. While there has been limited research on fidelity of implementation in the social sciences, research in drug abuse prevention provides evidence that poor implementation is likely to result in a loss of program effectiveness.…

• NI
  National Institute on Drug Abuse