Guidelines for Adapting Manualized Interventions for New Target Populations: A Step-Wise Approach Using Anger Management as a Model

Abstract

The use of manual-based interventions tends to improve client outcomes and promote replicability. With an increasingly strong link between funding and the use of empirically supported prevention and intervention programs, manual development and adaptation have become research priorities. As a result, researchers and scholars have generated guidelines for developing manuals from scratch, but there are no extant guidelines for adapting empirically supported, manualized prevention and intervention programs for use with new populations. Thus, this article proposes step-by-step guidelines for the manual adaptation process. It also describes two adaptations of an extensively researched anger management intervention to exemplify how an empirically supported program was systematically and efficiently adapted to achieve similar outcomes with vastly different populations in unique settings.

Keywords: anger management; intervention; manual adaptation; prevention; treatment.

Figures

Figure 1

Steps of the manual adaptation process.