Publications by authors named "Leopoldo Cabassa"

The United States is facing a growing behavioral health crisis. Now more than ever, novel, safe and effective treatments are needed. Over the past decade, clinical trials of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapies (PAT) have shown promising results for treating a number of common behavioral health conditions with minimal adverse effects.

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Introduction: Demonstrating the impact of implementation science presents a new frontier for the field, and operationalizing downstream impact is challenging. The Translational Science Benefits Model (TSBM) offers a new approach for assessing and demonstrating research impact. Here we describe integration of the TSBM into a mentored training network.

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Psychedelics (e.g., 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine [MDMA], lysergic acid diethylamide [LSD], psilocybin) are molecules that have the potential to produce rapid therapeutic effects when paired with psychotherapy.

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In response to the COVID-19 public health emergency, state and local mental health authorities rapidly developed and disseminated guidance to community mental health agencies. While tailored communication is effective to reach target audiences under usual circumstances, strategies to facilitate the implementation of guidance amidst a rapidly evolving public health emergency are not well understood. This project sought to understand factors informing decision-making about adaptations to guidance, and strategies used to disseminate and facilitate guidance implementation among system-level community partners in OnTrackNY Coordinated Specialty Care (CSC) programs for early psychosis.

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Objective: Stigma toward individuals with schizophrenia and psychosis has been widely studied in the general population, but research on Spanish-language news media coverage of these mental disorders in the Latinx population is limited. The authors aimed to examine how schizophrenia and psychosis are commonly presented in U.S.

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In their article on "Navigating the Field of Implementation Science Towards Maturity: Challenges and Opportunities," Chambers and Emmons describe the rapid growth of implementation science along with remaining challenges. A significant gap remains in training and capacity building. Formats for capacity building include university degree programs, summer training institutes, workshops, and conferences.

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Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a significant shift to delivering early psychosis services using telehealth. Little is known about the experience of using telehealth in early psychosis services. This quality improvement qualitative project investigated the experiences of program participants and family members with telehealth services in OnTrackNY, an early intervention program for psychosis in New York State during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Phosphatidylethanol (PEth) is a blood-based biomarker for alcohol consumption that can be self-collected and has high sensitivity, specificity, and a longer detection window compared to other alcohol biomarkers. We evaluated the feasibility and acceptability of a telehealth-based contingency management (CM) intervention for alcohol use disorder (AUD) using the blood-based biomarker PEth to assess alcohol consumption. Sixteen adults (7 female, 9 male) with AUD were randomized to Control or CM conditions.

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Site differences in implementation trial outcomes are common but often not examined. In a Hybrid Type 1 trial examining the effectiveness-implementation of a peer-led group life-style balance (PGLB) intervention for people with serious mental illness (SMI) in three supportive housing agencies, we found that PGLB recipients' physical health outcomes differed by study sites. The matrixed multiple case study methodology was used to explore how implementation outcomes and changes in context of usual care (UC) services contributed to these site differences.

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Asian Americans are less likely than Whites to seek mental care and when they do, there is a substantial delay in help-seeking. Stigma associated with mental health service use is one of the major barriers to help-seeking among Asian Americans. However, few studies have examined multi-layered contextual predictors of stigma to examine joint as well as unique contributions of each predictor.

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Background: Veterans receiving care within the Veterans Health Administration (VA) are a unique population with distinctive cultural traits and healthcare needs compared to the civilian population. Modifications to evidence-based interventions (EBIs) developed outside of the VA may be useful to adapt care to the VA healthcare system context or to specific cultural norms among veterans. We sought to understand how EBIs have been modified for veterans and whether adaptations were feasible and acceptable to veteran populations.

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Aim: Young adults (ages 18-35) are underrepresented in lifestyle interventions for people with serious mental illness (SMI), such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and severe depression, and little is known about factors influencing their engagement in these programmes. This qualitative study examined factors affecting engagement amongst young adults with SMI who were enrolled in a lifestyle intervention trial at community mental health centres.

Methods: Seventeen young adults with SMI participated in this qualitative study.

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People with severe mental illness (SMI) experience significantly higher obesity-related comorbidities and premature mortality rates than healthy populations. The physical and social characteristics of neighborhoods where people with SMI reside can play an important role in promoting or hindering healthy eating and physical activity. However, this is seldom considered when designing and testing health behavior interventions for these populations.

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Background: In 2005, Chile became the first country in Latin America to guarantee universal free access for the diagnosis and treatment of schizophrenia. A cluster randomized control trial utilizing the Dynamic Adaptation Process framework is underway to adapt and test the OnTrack coordinated specialty care model to provide recovery-oriented, person-centered care by a multidisciplinary team for individuals with first episode psychosis (FEP) in Chile.

Methods: A qualitative formative research study was conducted to inform the initial adaptation of the OnTrack Chile (OTCH) program.

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Over the past two decades, there has been increased recognition of the effectiveness of peer delivered services, with prior research highlighting the benefits for both recipients of peer services and peer providers. Despite this, peer specialists report challenges to their work such as experiencing stigma associated with their role and difficulty integrating into a non-peer dominated workforce. The study sought to explore the perceptions of agency leadership from three supportive housing agencies regarding peer specialists and peer-delivered services within their organization before and after a peer-led intervention to promote healthy lifestyles for people with SMI.

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OnTrackNY provides early intervention services to young people with early psychosis throughout New York State. This report describes the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on community participation of OnTrackNY program participants and their families. Thirteen participants and nine family members participated in five focus groups and three individual semi-structured interviews.

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Objective: The study sought to determine whether reporting a history of depression, anxiety, PTSD, bipolar disorder, drug or alcohol use disorder, ADHD, schizophrenia, or current depressive symptoms was associated with requesting help for any of 12 social needs.

Methods: A community-based sample of 1,944 low-income adult smokers in Missouri who had called a telephone helpline for social needs were recruited between June 1, 2017 and November 15, 2020. Helpline data on callers' requests for assistance with utilities, housing, food, household goods, healthcare, transportation, adult care, financial assistance, employment, legal assistance, personal safety and childcare were merged with self-reported mental health data collected in a subsequent phone survey with the same callers.

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Article Synopsis
  • Mobile health (mHealth) technologies are widely used in psychosis research but haven't been effectively integrated into real-world clinical care, despite many smartphone apps designed for mental health management.
  • Most existing apps focus on self-management techniques and health reminders rather than enhancing the therapeutic relationship between patients and clinicians.
  • The FREEDoM app aims to improve data sharing during clinical encounters for first-episode psychosis, incorporating clinician feedback to enhance shared decision-making and strengthen the therapeutic relationship.*
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Purpose: Healthy lifestyle interventions can improve the health of people with serious mental illness (SMI). Little is known whether demographic variables moderate the effectiveness of these interventions on health outcomes.

Method: Data from an effectiveness trial of a peer-led healthy lifestyle intervention (PGLB) for people with SMI examine whether age, racial/ethnic minoritized status, and gender moderated the effectiveness of PGLB compared to usual care (UC) in achieving clinically significant improvements in weight, cardiorespiratory fitness, and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk reduction.

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Rates of food insecurity are high among adults with serious mental illness (SMI); this population also engages in less physical activity than the general population. However, the relationship between food insecurity and physical activity in this group has not been explored. We examined food insecurity prevalence and its association with physical activity in 314 adults with SMI living in supportive housing in New York City and Philadelphia and enrolled in an institutional review board-approved randomized controlled trial of a Peer Group Lifestyle Balance (PGLB) program.

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