Impact of COVID-19-Related Social Distancing on Delivery of Intensive Case Management.

Social distancing due to COVID-19 may adversely impact treatment of adults with serious mental illness, especially those receiving intensive forms of community-based care, in part through weakening of the therapeutic alliance. Veterans and staff at a Veterans Affair (VA) medical center were surveyed 3 months after social distancing disrupted usual service delivery in intensive community-based treatment programs. Veterans (n = 105) and staff (n = 112) gave similar multi-item ratings of service delivery after social distancing, which involved far less face-to-face contact and more telephone contact than usual and rated their therapeutic alliances and clinical status similarly as "not as good" on average than before social distancing.

Psychiatric Multimorbidity in a Specialized Program for Severely Mentally Ill Veterans.

It has been suggested that psychiatric multimorbidity may better characterize severely impaired psychiatric patients than individual severe mental illness (SMI) diagnoses, and that these patients may be better served by centers offering integrated co-located, psychiatric and social services than in conventional clinics providing one-to-one care. We tested the hypothesis that multimorbidity is a critical characteristic of Veterans treated at a co-located multi-service Veteran's Health Administration (VHA) program originally established to treat Veterans living with SMI. Administrative data from the VA Connecticut Health Care System from fiscal year 2012 were used to compare veterans using diverse mental health and social services at the Errera Community Care Center (ECCC), an integrated "one-stop shop" for SMI veterans, and those seen exclusively at standard outpatient mental health clinics.

Job Burnout Among Mental Health Staff at a Veterans Affairs Psychosocial Rehabilitation Center.

Mental health providers who serve clients with severe mental illness may be particularly prone to job burnout given the nature of the work. This study examined levels of job burnout among mental health providers who serve clients with severe mental illness. Forty-two mental health staff at a Veterans Affairs psychosocial rehabilitation center completed an online survey that assessed burnout and work-life balance.