Publications by authors named "L Lavagnino"

Background: The pattern of structural brain abnormalities in anorexia nervosa (AN) is still not well understood. While several studies report substantial deficits in gray matter volume and cortical thickness in acutely underweight patients, others find no differences, or even increases in patients compared with healthy control subjects. Recent weight regain before scanning may explain some of this heterogeneity.

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Objective: High-acuity publicly funded inpatient psychiatric settings usually feature short lengths of stay and high readmission rates. This study examined the influence of an early intervention program for serious mental illnesses (SMI) on readmissions at 6 and 12 months postdischarge at a high-volume, urban public inpatient psychiatric hospital.

Methods: The Early Onset Treatment Program (EOTP) is a cost-free, 90-day inpatient multidisciplinary service intervention program for uninsured patients who are within 5 years of SMI onset, funded as a pilot program by the Texas state legislature.

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Individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) are at increased risk for arrest and incarceration relative to the same-community population without SMI. Publicly-funded inpatient psychiatric hospitals usually feature short lengths of stay and limited opportunities for extended services that might impact criminal justice involvement after discharge. This study examined the influence of an early intervention program for SMI at a high-volume public psychiatric hospital on involvement in the criminal justice system post-discharge.

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Patients with severe mental illness (SMI) have increased burden of somatic illnesses, especially cardiovascular disease. Characterizing the cardiovascular risk profile of patients with SMI is therefore crucial to understanding how to decrease morbidity and mortality in these vulnerable populations. In this observational study, entropy balancing (a form of propensity score matching) was used to compare cardiometabolic health in a sample of the general population from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) datasets to inpatients hospitalized in a large, urban, academic psychiatric hospital in Harris County, Texas.

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