The BRIGHTEN program: implementation and evaluation of a program to bridge resources of an interdisciplinary geriatric health team via electronic networking.

Purpose: To demonstrate the feasibility of the BRIGHTEN Program (Bridging Resources of an Interdisciplinary Geriatric Health Team via Electronic Networking), an interdisciplinary team intervention for assessing and treating older adults for depression in outpatient primary and specialty medical clinics. The BRIGHTEN team collaborates "virtually" to review patient assessment results, develop a treatment plan, and refer to appropriate team members for follow-up care.

Design And Methods: Older adults in 9 academic medical center clinics and 2 community-based clinics completed screening forms for symptoms of depression and anxiety.

An exploratory study of inducing positive expectancies for psychotherapy.

Objectives: The goal of this study was to determine whether explicit presentation of outcome data about the effectiveness of psychotherapy among older adults increased positive expectancy for treatment.

Method: The study included an ethically diverse sample of 50 adults over age 60 who screened positive for depression and agreed to participate in the BRIGHTEN Program, an interdisciplinary geriatric mental health program. Prior to treatment initiation, we presented participants with outcome data about psychotherapy, asked participants to rate and respond to the data, and asked participants about prior experience with mental health treatment.