PRISM-E: comparison of integrated care and enhanced specialty referral in managing at-risk alcohol use

OBJECTIVE: This study was part of the Primary Care Research in Substance Abuse and Mental Health for the Elderly study (PRISM-E) and determined the relative effectiveness of two different models of care for reducing at-risk alcohol use among primary care patients aged 65 and older. METHODS: This multisite study was a randomized clinical trial comparing integrated care with enhanced specialty referral for older primary care patients screened and identified to have at-risk drinking. RESULTS: Before the study, the 560 participants consumed a mean of 17.9 drinks per week and had a mean of 21.1 binge episodes in the prior three months. At six months, both treatment groups reported lower levels of average weekly drinking (p<.001) and binge drinking (p<.001), despite low levels of treatment engagement. However, the declines did not differ significantly between treatment groups. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that older persons with at-risk drinking can substantially modify their drinking over time. Although no evidence suggested that the model of care was important in achieving this result, the magnitude of reduction in alcohol use was comparable with other intervention studies.     

Improving access to geriatric mental health services: a randomized trial comparing treatment engagement with integrated versus enhanced referral care for depression, anxiety, and at-risk alcohol use

OBJECTIVE: The authors sought to determine whether integrated mental health services or enhanced referral to specialty mental health clinics results in greater engagement in mental health/substance abuse services by older primary care patients. METHOD: This multisite randomized trial included 10 sites consisting of primary care and specialty mental health/substance abuse clinics. Primary care patients 65 years old or older (N=24,930) were screened. The final study group consisted of 2,022 patients (mean age=73.5 years; 26% female; 48% ethnic minority) with depression (N=1,390), anxiety (N=70), at-risk alcohol use (N=414), or dual diagnosis (N=148) who were randomly assigned to integrated care (mental health and substance abuse providers co-located in primary care; N=999) or enhanced referral to specialty mental health/substance abuse clinics (i.e., facilitated scheduling, transportation, payment; N=1,023). RESULTS: Seventy-one percent of patients engaged in treatment in the integrated model compared with 49% in the enhanced referral model. Integrated care was associated with more mental health and substance abuse visits per patient (mean=3.04) relative to enhanced referral (mean=1.91). Overall, greater engagement was predicted by integrated care and higher mental distress. For depression, greater engagement was predicted by integrated care and more severe depression. For at-risk alcohol users, greater engagement was predicted by integrated care and more severe problem drinking. For all conditions, greater engagement was associated with closer proximity of mental health/substance abuse services to primary care. CONCLUSIONS: Older primary care patients are more likely to accept collaborative mental health treatment within primary care than in mental health/substance abuse clinics. These results suggest that integrated service arrangements improve access to mental health and substance abuse services for older adults who underuse these services.     

The costs and benefits of enhanced depression care to employers

CONTEXT: Although outreach and enhanced treatment interventions improve depression outcomes, uptake has been poor in part because purchasers lack information on their return on investment. OBJECTIVE: To estimate the costs and benefits of enhanced depression care for workers from the societal and employer-purchaser perspectives. DESIGN: Cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analyses using state-transition Markov models. Simulated movements between health states were based on probabilities drawn from the clinical literature. PARTICIPANTS: Hypothetical cohort of 40-year-old workers. Intervention Enhanced depression care consisting of a depression screen and care management for those depressed vs usual care. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Our base-case cost-effectiveness analysis was from the societal perspective; costs and quality-adjusted life-years were used to compute the incremental cost-effectiveness of the intervention relative to usual care. A secondary cost-benefit analysis from the employer's perspective tracked monetary costs and monetary benefits accruing to employers during a 5-year time horizon. RESULTS: From the societal perspective, screening and depression care management for workers result in an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of $19 976 per quality-adjusted life-year relative to usual care. These results are consistent with recent primary care effectiveness trials and within the range for medical interventions usually covered by employer-sponsored insurance. From the employer's perspective, enhanced depression care yields a net cumulative benefit of $2895 after 5 years. In 1-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses, these findings were robust to a variety of assumptions. CONCLUSION: If these results can be replicated in effectiveness trials directly assessing effects on work outcomes, they suggest that enhanced treatment quality programs for depression are cost-beneficial to purchasers.     

The relationship between quality and outcomes in routine depression care

OBJECTIVE: This longitudinal, nonexperimental study examined whether depression treatment provided in concordance with guidelines developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is associated with improved clinical outcomes. METHODS: The medical, insurance, and pharmacy records of a community-based sample of 435 subjects who screened positive for current major depression were abstracted to ascertain whether depression treatment was received and whether it was provided in accordance with AHRQ guidelines. Regression analyses estimated the impact of guideline-concordant treatment on the change in depression severity and on mental and physical health over a six-month period. An instrumental variables analysis was used to check the sensitivity of the results to selection bias. RESULTS: A total of 106 subjects were treated for depression by 105 different primary care and specialty providers. Sixty percent of the sample had current major depression, and about 40 percent had subthreshold depression. Only 29 percent of the patients received guideline-concordant treatment. For patients with major depression, guideline-concordant care was significantly and substantially associated with improved depression severity but not with improvements in overall mental or physical health. The instrumental variables analysis indicated that the standard regression analysis underestimated the treatment effect by 21 percent. For those with subthreshold depression, guideline-concordant care was not associated with improved outcomes. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: This community-based, nonexperimental study found a positive relationship between the quality of care for depression and clinical outcomes for patients with major depression in routine practice settings.     

Predicting outcomes of primary care patients with major depression: development of a depression prognosis index

OBJECTIVE: Depression research and practice focus increasingly on diverse patient populations with varying probabilities of response to clinical care. Prognostic indices use preexisting patient characteristics to estimate the probability of subsequent negative clinical outcomes and are useful tools for improving the study and care of diverse populations. Few such measures, however, have been developed for mental health conditions. This study developed and validated a depression prognosis measure for primary care patients with major depression. METHODS: Consecutive patients in 108 primary care practices were screened for depression, and 1,471 with major depression were enrolled. A Depression Prognosis Index (DPI) predicting persistent depression six months after baseline was developed for a random one-third subsample and validated with the remaining two-thirds. Models included prior treatment, demographic characteristics, comorbidities, and other physical, psychological, and social predictors. RESULTS: Sixty-four percent to 65% of patients classified by baseline DPI score as being in the sample quartile with the worst prognosis had probable major depression six months later, compared with 14% to 15% in the best-prognosis quartile. The DPI had an R2 of .40 in the development sample and .27 in the validation sample. Important predictors included severity of depression symptoms at baseline, social support, common physical symptoms, and having completed three months of antidepressants at sample entry. CONCLUSIONS: The ability of the DPI to predict six-month outcomes compares favorably to that of prognostic indices for general medical problems. These results validate the DPI and provide conceptual guidance for further development of depression risk stratification instruments for clinical and research use.     

Naturalistic outcomes of minor and subsyndromal depression in older primary care patients

OBJECTIVE: To review the literature regarding the naturalistic outcomes of minor and subsyndromal depression ('Min/SSD') in older primary care patients, synthesizing and critiquing findings and discussing avenues for future research. DESIGN: The author obtained relevant articles from repeated computer-assisted literature searches over the past 15 years, and by reviewing the reference citations of the articles so obtained. RESULTS: A variety of relevant outcome domains were identified, as were important putative predictors, moderators, and mediators of outcome. In general, minor and subsyndromal depression each have comparable outcomes, outcomes that are clearly worse than non-depressed subjects, with substantially elevated risk of worsening into major depression, albeit not as poor as those with major depression. CONCLUSIONS: Min/SSD is common and of real clinical importance in primary care seniors. Several definitions of SSD may be used, each with overlapping but distinguishable utility in identifying patients. While the evidence base has expanded greatly in the past decade, considerable work remains to be done. Naturalistic studies of several outcome domains are needed, focusing on the predictive, moderating, and mediating roles of a wide range of psychopathological, medical, functional, and psychosocial factors. Such work will complement interventions and biomarker research approaches.     

Treatment outcomes in depression: comparison of remote treatment through telepsychiatry to in-person treatment

OBJECTIVE: Telepsychiatry is an increasingly common method of providing psychiatric care, but randomized trials of telepsychiatric treatment compared to in-person treatment have not been done. The primary objective of this study was to compare treatment outcomes of patients with depressive disorders treated remotely by means of telepsychiatry to outcomes of depressed patients treated in person. Secondary objectives were to determine if patients' rates of adherence to and satisfaction with treatment were as high with telepsychiatric as with in-person treatment and to compare costs of telepsychiatric treatment to costs of in-person treatment. METHOD: In this randomized, controlled trial, 119 depressed veterans referred for outpatient treatment were randomly assigned to either remote treatment by means of telepsychiatry or in-person treatment. Psychiatric treatment lasted 6 months and consisted of psychotropic medication, psychoeducation, and brief supportive counseling. Patients' treatment outcomes, satisfaction, and adherence and the costs of treatment were compared between the two conditions. RESULTS: Hamilton Depression Rating Scale and Beck Depression Inventory scores improved over the treatment period and did not differ between treatment groups. The two groups were equally adherent to appointments and medication treatment. No between-group differences in dropout rates or patients' ratings of satisfaction with treatment were found. Telepsychiatry was more expensive per treatment session, but this difference disappeared if the costs of psychiatrists' travel to remote clinics more than 22 miles away from the medical center were considered. Telepsychiatry did not increase the overall health care resource consumption of the patients during the study period. CONCLUSIONS: Remote treatment of depression by means of telepsychiatry and in-person treatment of depression have comparable outcomes and equivalent levels of patient adherence, patient satisfaction, and health care cost.     

One-year outcomes of minor and subsyndromal depression in older primary care patients

BACKGROUND: Despite the high prevalence and morbidity of minor and subsyndromal depression in primary care elderly people, there are few data to identify those at highest risk of poor outcomes. The goal of this observational cohort study was to characterize the one-year outcomes of minor and subsyndromal depression, examining the predictive strength of a range of putative risks including clinical, functional and psychosocial variables. METHODS: Patients aged > or = 65 years were recruited from primary care medicine and family medicine practices. Of 750 enrollees, 484 (64.5%) completed baseline and one-year follow-up assessments of depression diagnosis (major depression vs. minor and subsyndromal depression vs. non-depressed) by the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV, depressive symptom severity (Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression), and validated measures of other predictors. RESULTS: Patients with baseline minor and subsyndromal depression were more depressed than the non-depressed group at follow-up: They had a 7.0-fold (95% CI 4.5-10.8) risk of developing major depression, and a one-year adjusted Hamilton Depression Score of 11.0 (95% CI 10.2-11.8) compared with 7.8 (95% CI 7.1-8.5) for the non-depressed group; these outcomes were less severe than those of the major depression group. Independent predictors of depression outcomes included race, psychiatric and physical functioning, and social support. CONCLUSIONS: Minor and subsyndromal depression are likely to persist, and pose an elevated risk of worsening over one year. Clinicians and preventive interventions researchers should focus on modifiable risks, such as psychiatric functioning or social support, in elders suffering clinically significant depressive symptoms.     

Trajectories of depression following spousal and child bereavement: A comparison of the heterogeneity in outcomes

Our understanding of how individuals react to the loss of a close loved one comes largely from studies of spousal bereavement. The extent to which findings are relevant to other bereavements is uncertain. A major methodological limitation of current studies has been a reliance on retrospective reporting of functioning and use of samples of individuals who have self-selected for participant in grief research. To address these limitations, in the current study we applied Latent Growth Mixture Modelling (LGMM) in a prospective population-based sample to identify trajectories of depression following spousal and child bereavement in later life. The sample consisted of 2512 individual bereaved adults who were assessed once before and three times after their loss. Four discrete trajectories were identified: Resilience (little or no depression; 68.2%), Chronic Grief (an onset of depression following loss; 13.2%), Depressed-Improved (high pre-loss depression that decreased following loss; 11.2%), and Pre-existing Chronic Depression (high depression at all assessments; 7.4%). These trajectories were present for both child and spousal loss. There was some evidence that child loss in later life was associated more strongly with the Chronic Grief trajectory and less strongly with the Resilience trajectory. However these differences disappeared when covariates were included in the model. Limitations of the analyses are discussed. These findings increase our understanding of the variety of outcomes following bereavement and underscore the importance of using prospective designs to map heterogeneity of response outcomes.     

Response speed and rate of remission in primary and specialty care of elderly patients with depression.

OBJECTIVE: Depression treatment in primary care elderly patients has been inadequate, resulting in low rates of response and remission. The authors compared treatment remission rates and time-to-remission of elderly subjects enrolled in two ongoing depression treatment studies, one in primary care practices ("PROSPECT") and the other in an academic tertiary mental health care center ("MTLD-2"), in order to assess the value of standardizing and intensifying depression treatment in primary care elderly patients. METHODS: Authors compared remission rates and time to criterion endpoints via survival analysis. The 126 PROSPECT subjects (mean age 71) included primary care patients with either current episodes of major depression or minor depression. The 129 MTLD-2 subjects (mean age 77) had single or recurrent unipolar major depression. PROSPECT subjects received a variety of open treatments, including the drug citalopram and/or interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT). Both patient and provider preferences influenced treatment selected. MTLD-2 subjects received more structured, open paroxetine treatment and IPT. RESULTS: The remission rates of PROSPECT and MTLD-2 were 86.5% and 88.4%, respectively. Median time-to-remission in PROSPECT was significantly longer than in MTLD-2 (12 weeks versus 8.7 weeks). Limiting the survival analysis to subjects with major depression produced faster attainment of remission criteria. CONCLUSION: Notwithstanding these differences in speed and rate of symptom resolution, good treatment can work well in geriatric depression in the primary care sector.     

Better outcomes in mental health care: impact of different models of psychological service provision on patient outcomes

OBJECTIVE: One hundred and eight Access to Allied Psychological Services projects have been funded under Australia's Better Outcomes in Mental Health Care programme since July 2001. All projects are run by Divisions of General Practice and enable general practitioners (GPs) to refer patients to allied health professionals for evidence-based care. They differ in the models they use to retain, locate and direct referrals to their allied health professionals. This paper examines the extent to which the projects are achieving positive patient outcomes, and explores the association between different models of service delivery and varying levels of patient outcomes. METHOD: The paper draws on two data sources (a purpose-designed minimum dataset and a survey of models of service delivery) to examine the level of patient outcomes within and across projects, and variations in the level of patient outcomes by models of service delivery. RESULTS: The projects are achieving positive effects and these are mostly of large or medium magnitude. The projects do not differ markedly in terms of the patient outcomes they are achieving, despite differences in the models of service delivery they are using. However, those projects implementing a direct referral model, where the GP refers the patient directly to the allied health professional, have significantly greater effect sizes, indicating that they are achieving greater improvements in patient outcomes. In addition, there are non-significant trends toward direct employment of allied health professionals by Divisions being predictive of greater improvements in patient outcomes, and delivery of services from allied health professionals' own rooms being predictive of weaker patient outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Overwhelmingly, the Access to Allied Psychological Services projects are having a positive impact for patients in terms of their level of functioning, severity of symptoms and/or quality of life. Preliminary indications suggest that a service delivery model incorporating the use of a direct referral system may be associated with superior outcomes. The findings are discussed in the light of the imminent listing of psychologists' services on the Medicare Benefits Schedule.     

Preliminary outcomes from an integrated mental health primary care team

The effects of establishing a multidisciplinary mental health primary care team in a Veterans Affairs internal medicine primary care clinic were evaluated. The multidisciplinary team worked in collaboration with primary care providers to evaluate and treat their patients, who had a wide variety of psychiatric disorders, in the primary care clinic. In the first year of operation preliminary outcomes indicated that the rate of referrals to specialty mental health care dropped from 38 percent to 14 percent. The mean number of appointments with the team for evaluation and stabilization was 2.5. These outcomes suggest that a multidisciplinary mental health primary care team can rapidly evaluate and stabilize patients with a wide range of psychiatric disorders, reduce the number of referrals to specialty mental health care, and improve collaborative care.     

Risk factor management and depression post-stroke: the value of an integrated model of care.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Shared care initiatives, albeit commonly utilised in managing other chronic conditions have not been implemented in the area of stroke in Australia. The aims of this project were to adopt a shared care approach for stroke survivors comparing an experimental "shared-care" group with a "treatment-as-usual" control group in reference to the normalization or reversal of vascular risk factors and the detection and management of post-stroke depression. METHODS: A randomised controlled experimental research design was implemented with participants randomized to an intervention or control group and followed over a 12-month period. The treatment group consisted of a randomly selected group of patients, discharged from an acute stroke unit and transferred into the shared care model. Risk factors for stroke and depression were compared between the two groups. RESULTS: Of 97 patients originally included in the study, 17 dropped out. At 12 months, 80 patients remained for analysis (35 in the intervention group and 45 in the control group). The findings demonstrated positive trends for patients within the intervention group that were not found within the control group. The percentage of intervention patients reaching target systolic blood pressure (sBP) of 140 mmHg after 12 months tended to be greater than in the control group (p=0.11, NS). In the intervention group, at 12 months, the total cholesterol greater than 5.18 mmol/L was 12.5% compared to 58.8% at discharge. In contrast this trend was not so distinct in the control group (57.7% to 42.9%). The percentage of patients reaching target (recommended) total cholesterol of 5.18 mmol/L was significantly greater in the shared care patients intervention group relative to the control group (p=0.02). The average number of walks per week was also significantly greater in intervention group compared to the control group (p=0.048). Moreover, 45% of the control group screened as depressed compared with 20% of the intervention group at 12 months (p=0.06). CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates that major risk factors for recurrent stroke and vascular disease in general are better managed with the shared care model than with usual post-discharge care. The significantly reduced depression as found on the screening PHQ9 at 12 months indicated that the intervention was beneficial not only in the detection of depression but also treatment.     

"Usual care" for major depression in the 1990s: characteristics and expert-estimated outcomes

OBJECTIVE: Motivated by the public health importance of major depression and calls to study the effectiveness of treatments frequently used in routine practice, the authors characterized the usual outpatient care of acute-phase major depression in a privately insured population as well as the effectiveness of this care. METHOD: Upon identifying frequent antidepressant interventions from a large administrative database spanning the years 1991-1996, and after completing an exhaustive review of published efficacy evidence, the authors undertook a two-stage elicitation process. A panel of 10 experts estimated probabilities of symptom-based outcomes for 120 combinations of treatment, provider type, and patient characteristics seen in 9,054 depressive episodes. The 10 most frequent treatments, utilized in 90% of the episodes, are reported here. RESULTS: A short course of psychotherapy delivered by specialists to healthy premenopausal women was the most frequent pattern of care. Only two prevalent treatments had adequate evidence. On the basis of expert-estimated rates of remission (Hamilton Depression Rating Scale score <8), response (score <13), and no change (score >/=18), three of the 10 most frequent treatments were highly effective, two were moderately effective, and five were minimally effective. CONCLUSIONS: Although experts gave high marks to three commonly used treatments, the expert-estimated effectiveness for this particular system of care was quite modest. More research is needed on the outcomes associated with specific usual care practices as well as the contributors to ineffective care.