Feasibility Study: The What, the Why, and the Place on Clinical Psychology

Akhavan-Abiri, Fatemeh; Shairi, Mohammad Reza; Farahani, Hojjatollah; Taghva, Arsia

doi:10.22070/cpap.2026.20980.1798

Feasibility Study: The What, the Why, and the Place on Clinical Psychology

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Fatemeh Akhavan-Abiri ¹

mohammad reza shairi ²

Hojjatollah Farahani ³

arsia Taghva ⁴

¹ Ph.D. Graduate of Clinical Psychology, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities, Shahed University, Tehran, Iran

² Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities, Shahed University, Tehran, Iran

³ Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

⁴ Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Military Psychiatry 505 Hospital, AJA University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

10.22070/cpap.2026.20980.1798

Abstract

Evidence-based interventions must undergo rigorous feasibility assessments after being designed and introduced to the scientific community in the health system. The judgment about their feasibility conforms, to some extent, to a basis to select new interventions as the first step. Feasibility studies seek to answer whether the intervention works in a small sample. If the answer is positive, the research progresses towards a full-scale study, such as a randomized controlled trial. The present article intends to refer to this concept by looking at the origin of feasibility studies and their place in psychology. It will then outline the necessity of conducting feasibility studies by considering their various components, the objectives of these studies, the importance of cultural differences, in an operational manner, and the steps to conduct a feasibility study. Just as psychometric properties of psychological testing instruments need to be studied when they are introduced into a new culture, a new psychotherapy program will need to overcome the methodological bottleneck of a feasibility study to be applied in its target culture to determine its suitability for expansion into the new context.

Keywords

Feasibility

Clinical Trial

Cultural Differences

Psychotherapy

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