Integrating the Transitional Relationship Model into Clinical Practice Cheryl Forchuk, Mary-Lou Martin, Elsabeth Jensen, Susan Ouseley, Patricia Sealy, Georgiana Beal, William Reynolds, and Siobhan Sharkey Background: The challenge of facilitating knowledge translation in clinical practice includes enabling practitioners and agencies to implement a com- mon set of best practices, such as the Transitional Relationship Model (TRM). In 1992, a participatory action project implemented the TRM on a long-term psychiatric hospital ward in Ontario, Canada. All participants were successfully bridged to the community. Despite positive outcomes as- sociated with the TRM, implementation of any best practice is difficult be- cause it involves changing processes. Objective: It was hypothesized that using multiple implementation strate- gies developed by wards that had already implemented the model would re- sult in improved TRM implementation. Method: This study compared three groups of hospital wards; Group A wards had already adopted the TRM, Group B wards implemented the TRM in Year 1, and Group C wards implemented the TRM in Year 2. An iterative process was used in which strategies suggested by the A wards were used to en- hance implementation on the B and C wards, respectively. These included enhancing staff participation, creating/maintaining supportive ward milieus, meeting specific educational needs, and supporting managers throughout the implementation process. The degree of actual implementation on each ward served as the primary outcome measure. Available online at www.sciencedirect.com From the Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Western Ontario; Lawson Health Research Institute, London, Ontario, Canada; McMaster University; St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton, Mental Health and Addiction Program, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; School of Nursing, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Lawson Health Research Institute, London, Ontario, Canada; Can-Voice, London, Ontario, Canada; Faculty of Nursing, University of Windsor; Ginderover 18, Heeze 5591 JP, Holland; Peninsula Medical School, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK. Corresponding Author: Cheryl Forchuk, RN, PhD. E–mail addresses: cforchuk@uwo.ca (C. Forchuk), martinm@stjosham.on.ca (M.-L. Martin), ejensen@yorku.ca (E. Jensen), canvoice@gtn.net (S. Ouseley), psealy@uwo.ca (P. Sealy), g.beal@sympatico.ca (G. Beal), drbillreynolds06@yahoo.ie (W. Reynolds), siobhan.sharkey@pms.ac.uk (S. Sharkey) © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 0883-9417/1801-0005$34.00/0 doi:10.1016/j.apnu.2011.12.002 Archives of Psychiatric Nursing, Vol. 26, No. 5 (October), 2012: pp 374–381 374