Browsing by Author "Jones, Sydney B."
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- Impact of Attitudes on the Relationship between Psychological Symptoms and Help Seeking Behavior in a Black and Non-Black International SampleJones, Sydney B. (Virginia Tech, 2024-04-08)Internationally, members of the African diaspora, (Black people), report higher rates of untreated mental illness than peers of other races. Research has suggested that symptoms associated with poor mental health such as clinical depression and anxiety are associated with negative evaluations of help seeking behaviors such as contacting mental health professionals for care. The current study sought to examine the impact of attitudes toward seeking mental health care on the causal relationship between symptoms of depression, anxiety or stress as measured by the DASS-21 to help seeking behaviors reported by participants. This study further examined the impact of racial identity on this relationship to highlight any discrepancies specific to Black people. This research is intended to help guide and improve outreach, access, and clinical approaches to treating Black people with mental illness. A total of 500 participants were recruited for this study via online surveying software. Participants were divided into two groupings of 250 Black participants and 250 Non-Black participants (N=500) to complete the survey. A moderated mediation analysis was conducted to examine the mediating effects of attitudes towards professional help seeking on the relationship between psychological symptomology and help seeking behaviors, as well as to examine any moderating effects that could be highlighted by racial differences. There was a significant direct relationship between symptoms and help seeking behaviors found with a significant partial mediating effect of participant attitudes on the direct relationship (R2= 0.1521, p=<0.000). Race was not found to be a significant moderator of this mediation (CI95%: -0.001 to 0.004), though race did moderate the direct relationship from symptoms to help seeking behaviors (β= 0.016, SE= 0.0025, t= 6.375, p= < 0.000).
- Improving measurement-based care implementation in adult ambulatory psychiatry: a virtual focus group interview with multidisciplinary healthcare professionalsKo, Hayoung; Gatto, Alyssa J.; Jones, Sydney B.; O’Brien, Virginia C.; McNamara, Robert S.; Tenzer, Martha M.; Sharp, Hunter D.; Kablinger, Anita S.; Cooper, Lee D. (2023-04-26)Background Measurement-Based Care (MBC) is an evidence-based practice shown to enhance patient care. Despite being efficacious, MBC is not commonly used in practice. While barriers and facilitators of MBC implementation have been described in the literature, the type of clinicians and populations studied vary widely, even within the same practice setting. The current study aims to improve MBC implementation in adult ambulatory psychiatry by conducting focus group interviews while utilizing a novel virtual brainwriting premortem method. Methods Semi-structured focus group interviews were conducted with clinicians (n = 18) and staff (n = 7) to identify their current attitudes, facilitators, and barriers of MBC implementation in their healthcare setting. Virtual video-conferencing software was used to conduct focus groups, and based on transcribed verbatin, emergent barriers/facilitators and four themes were identified. Mixed methods approach was utilized for this study. Specifically, qualitative data was aggregated and re-coded separately by three doctoral-level coders. Quantitative analyses were conducted from a follow-up questionnaire surveying clinician attitudes and satisfaction with MBC. Results The clinician and staff focus groups resulted in 291 and 91 unique codes, respectively. While clinicians identified a similar number of barriers (40.9%) and facilitators (44.3%), staff identified more barriers (67%) than facilitators (24.7%) for MBC. Four themes emerged from the analysis; (1) a description of current status/neutral opinion on MBC; (2) positive themes that include benefits of MBC, facilitators, enablers, or reasons on why they conduct MBC in their practice, (3) negative themes that include barriers or issues that hinder them from incorporating MBC into their practice, and (4) requests and suggestions for future MBC implementation. Both participant groups raised more negative themes highlighting critical challenges to MBC implementation than positive themes. The follow-up questionnaire regarding MBC attitudes showed the areas that clinicians emphasized the most and the least in their clinical practice. Conclusion The virtual brainwriting premortem focus groups provided critical information on the shortcomings and strengths of MBC in adult ambulatory psychiatry. Our findings underscore implementation challenges in healthcare settings and provide insight for both research and clinical practice in mental health fields. The barriers and facilitators identified in this study can inform future training to increase sustainability and better integrate MBC with positive downstream outcomes in patient care.
- Use of Patient-Reported Outcome Measures to Assess the Effectiveness of Hybrid Psychiatric VisitsO'Brien, Virginia C.; Kablinger, Anita S.; Ko, Hayoung; Jones, Sydney B.; McNamara, Robert S.; Phenes, Ashlie R.; Hankey, Maria Stack; Gatto, Alyssa J.; Tenzer, Martha M.; Sharp, Hunter D.; Cooper, Lee D. (American Psychiatric Association, 2024-06-12)Objective: Little empirical evidence exists to support the effectiveness of hybrid psychiatric care, defined as care delivered through a combination of telephone, videoconferencing, and in-person visits. The authors aimed to investigate the effectiveness of hybrid psychiatric care compared with outpatient waitlist groups, assessed with patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs). Method: Participants were recruited from an adult psychiatry clinic waitlist on which the most common primary diagnoses were unipolar depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and bipolar disorder. Patients (N=148) were randomly assigned to one of two waitlist groups that completed PROMs once or monthly before treatment initiation. PROMs were used to assess symptoms of depression (Patient Health Questionnaire-9 [PHQ-9]), anxiety (Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 [GAD-7]), and daily psychological functioning (Brief Adjustment Scale-6 [BASE-6]). Patient measures were summarized descriptively with means, medians, and SDs and then compared by using the Kruskal-Wallis test; associated effect sizes were calculated. PROM scores for patients who received hybrid psychiatric treatment during a different period (N=272) were compared with scores of the waitlist groups. Results: PROM assessments of patients who engaged in hybrid care indicated significant improvements in symptom severity compared with the waitlist groups, regardless of the number of PROMs completed while patients were on the waitlist. Between the hybrid care and waitlist groups, the effect size for the PHQ-9 score was moderate (d=0.66); effect sizes were small for the GAD-7 (d=0.46) and BASE-6 (d=0.45) scores. Conclusions: The findings indicate the clinical effectiveness of hybrid care and that PROMs can be used to assess this effectiveness.