Measuring Access to Mental Health Services Among Primary Care Patients.

Background: The lifetime risk of mental health disorders is almost 50% and, in any year, about 25% of the population have a psychiatric disorder. Many of those people are cared for in primary care settings.

Research Objective: Measure access to mental health services, such as getting counselling or prescription mental health medications, using new patient survey questions that can be added to Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) surveys.

Changes in Antidementia Medications upon Admission to the Nursing Home: Who Decides and Why? Results From a National Survey of Nursing Home Administrators.

Objective: Little is known about who is involved and what factors influence changes in antidementia medications for older adults living in nursing homes. The study sought to describe factors associated with initiation and discontinuation of antidementia medications in nursing home residents with dementia.

Design: National survey of nursing homes with ≥30 beds; homes with dementia units were oversampled.

Health Care Service Price Comparison Suggests That Employers Lack Leverage To Negotiate Lower Prices.

Almost two-thirds of the 153 million nonelderly people in the United States who have health insurance through their employer are in self-insured plans. In contrast to fully insured plans, employers using self-insured plans assume responsibility for employees' medical costs and therefore have an incentive to reduce the prices of health care services. We compared prices for common services in self-insured plans with those in fully insured plans.

Rising to the Occasion: A National Nursing Home Study Documenting Attempts to Address Social Isolation During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Objectives: COVID-19-related policies introduced extraordinary social disruption in nursing homes. In response, nursing facilities implemented strategies to alleviate their residents' loneliness. This study sought to describe interventions nursing homes used, document the perceived effectiveness of efforts, and determine barriers to implementing strategies to mitigate social isolation and loneliness.

Developing a Storytelling Study for African Americans with Hypertension:: A Study Protocol.

Objective: Storytelling is an engaging approach for promoting health and wellness among individuals with health conditions including type 2 diabetes (TTDM), breast cancer, and hypertension. Storytelling interventions are an evidence-based approach that has been effective in promoting behavioral change such as increasing physical activity, medication adherence, and making dietary changes. The use of storytelling to convey health information and promote behavior change is associated with increased engagement in self-management particularly in communities of color.