Improving Depression Care for Adults With Serious Mental Illness in Underresourced Areas: Community Coalitions Versus Technical Support

Psychiatr Serv. 2018 Feb 1;69(2):195-203. doi: 10.1176/appi.ps.201600514. Epub 2017 Oct 16.

Abstract

Objective: Community Partners in Care (CPIC) was a group-randomized study of two approaches to implementing expanded collaborative depression care: Community Engagement and Planning (CEP), a coalition approach, and Resources for Services (RS), a technical assistance approach. Collaborative care networks in both arms involved health care and other agencies in five service sectors. This study examined six- and 12-month outcomes for CPIC participants with serious mental illness.

Methods: This secondary analysis focused on low-income CPIC participants from racial-ethnic minority groups with serious mental illness in underresourced Los Angeles communities (N=504). Serious mental illness was defined as self-reported severe depression (≥20 on the Patient Health Questionnaire-8) at baseline or a lifetime history of bipolar disorder or psychosis. Logistic and Poisson regression with multiple imputation and response weights, controlling for covariates, was used to model intervention effects.

Results: Among CPIC participants, 50% had serious mental illness. Among those with serious mental illness, CEP relative to RS reduced the likelihood of poor mental health-related quality of life (OR=.62, 95% CI=.41-.95) but not depression (primary outcomes); reduced the likelihood of having homelessness risk factors and behavioral health hospitalizations; increased the likelihood of mental wellness; reduced specialty mental health medication and counseling visits; and increased faith-based depression visits (each p<.05) at six months. There were no statistically significant 12-month effects.

Conclusions: Findings suggest that a coalition approach to implementing expanded collaborative depression care, compared with technical assistance to individual programs, may reduce short-term behavioral health hospitalizations and improve mental health-related quality of life and some social outcomes for adults with serious mental illness, although no evidence was found for long-term effects in this subsample.

Keywords: Collaborative care; Community mental health services; Community psychiatry; Serious mental illness; homelessness; public sector mental health; social determinants.

Publication types

  • Randomized Controlled Trial

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Bipolar Disorder / complications
  • Bipolar Disorder / therapy*
  • Community Mental Health Services / methods*
  • Depressive Disorder / therapy*
  • Female
  • Hospitalization / statistics & numerical data
  • Humans
  • Ill-Housed Persons / psychology
  • Logistic Models
  • Los Angeles
  • Male
  • Medically Uninsured
  • Middle Aged
  • Poverty
  • Psychiatric Status Rating Scales
  • Psychotic Disorders / complications
  • Psychotic Disorders / therapy*
  • Quality of Life / psychology*
  • Self Report