Rural mental health service utilization in a Texas telepsychology clinic.

Objective: To determine if service utilization behaviors varied with the remoteness of clients served by a telepsychology clinic in a predominantly rural health professional shortage area (HPSA) in Texas.

Methods: Archival data from 290 low-income clients were analyzed to test associations between service utilization behaviors and clients' distance from the nearby access points where they traveled to receive counseling services from remotely located counselors.

Results: Distance to access points did not predict differences in service utilization behaviors.

The Effects of Social Skills Interventions for Students With EBD and ASD: A Single-Case Meta-Analysis.

Social skills interventions are critical for promoting social, emotional, and behavioral competence for students with or at risk of emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). This single-case meta-analysis examined the effects of social skills interventions (SSIs) for students with EBD and ASD. Effect sizes were calculated for 78 cases across 25 included studies using a nonparametric effect size, Baseline Corrected Tau.

Telemental health training and delivery in primary care: A case report of interdisciplinary treatment.

Telehealth can overcome access and availability barriers that often impede receiving needed mental health services. This case report describes an interdisciplinary approach to treatment for an individual with chronic physical health conditions and comorbid mental health concerns, which resulted in high utilization (and associated costs) of preventable emergency services. The report describes clinical case progression on anxiety symptoms and emergency service utilization while concurrently highlighting telehealth-specific practice implications, especially as they pertain to training settings.

A comprehensive method of single-case data analysis: Interrupted Time-Series Simulation (ITSSIM).

Single-case experimental methods are used across a range of educational and psychological research. Single-case data are analyzed with a variety of methods, but no statistic has demonstrated clear superiority over other methods. The time-series nature of single-case designs requires special consideration for baseline trend and autocorrelation when estimating intervention effect size.

An Improved Rank Correlation Effect Size Statistic for Single-Case Designs: Baseline Corrected Tau.

Measuring treatment effects when an individual's pretreatment performance is improving poses a challenge for single-case experimental designs. It may be difficult to determine whether improvement is due to the treatment or due to the preexisting baseline trend. Tau- U is a popular single-case effect size statistic that purports to control for baseline trend.

Health-related quality of life of rural clients seeking telepsychology services.

Sixty million US residents live in rural areas, but health policies and interventions developed from an urban mindset often fail to address the significant barriers to health experienced by these local communities. Telepsychology, or psychological services delivered by distance via technology, is an emerging treatment modality with special implications for underserved rural areas. This study found that a sample of rural residents seeking telepsychology services (n = 94) had low health-related quality of life (HRQOL), often due to cooccurring physical and mental health diagnoses including high rates of depression.