Learning to interact and collaborate with other professions is key to optimal patient care and is best achieved when started during one's education. This study implemented an interprofessional education simulation with family nurse practitioner and social work students utilizing standardized patients who presented with sensitive issues. The Student Perceptions of Interprofessional Clinical Education-Revised and Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale questionnaires were given before and after the activity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe publication of Facing Addiction in America: The Surgeon General's Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health presents an historic moment not only for the field of addiction medicine, but also for the United States as a nation. The Board of Directors of the Association for Medical Education and Research in Substance Abuse (AMERSA), on behalf of our organization, would like to express our appreciation of the efforts of Dr. Vivek Murthy and the Surgeon General's Office to publish the first surgeon general's report covering substance misuse and substance use disorders.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Optimal stimulus parameters for electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) are unclear. Pulse duration and frequency related to convulsive threshold and seizure duration in the first ECT treatment in a series were evaluated.
Methods: Convulsive threshold was estimated for all patients (N = 550) receiving ECT over 27 months.
Although social workers regularly encounter clients with substance use problems, social work education rarely addresses addictions with any depth. This pilot study explored the use of screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT) with 74 social work students. Students completed SBIRT training with pre- and post-questionnaires that assessed attitudes, knowledge, and skills concerning substance misuse.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe have used neutron reflectometry to investigate the behavior of a strong polyelectrolyte brush on a sapphire substrate, grown by atom-transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) from a silane-anchored initiator layer. The initiator layer was deposited from vapor, following treatment of the substrate with an Ar/H(2)O plasma to improve surface reactivity. The deposition process was characterized using X-ray reflectometry, indicating the formation of a complete, cross-linked layer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSubst Use Misuse
February 2012
This study utilized data from a National Institute on Drug Abuse and National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism funded community-based HIV prevention program in the Midwest in 2000. We categorized women who met lifetime criteria for alcohol dependence (using the DIS) and who also had used cocaine (n = 324) into four alcohol typologies based on onset of regular drinking and the length of time to dependence. The Risk Behavior Assessment measured sex behaviors, combined into a risk index, before and after the program.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Psychoactive Drugs
June 2011
Women and men have different histories, presentations, and behaviors in substance abuse groups. Twelve considerations are offered for the beginning group leader when encountering women with substance abuse issues. These include understanding sexism, what brings women to treatment, and how women behave in group treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdm Policy Ment Health
September 2009
Practice-based research networks (PBRNs)-collaborations of practice settings that work together to generate research knowledge-are underused in mental health services research. This article proposes an agenda for mental health services research that uses a variety of PBRN structures and that focuses on what really happens in practice, the effectiveness of practice innovations in real world care, the challenges of implementing evidence supported interventions, modification of clinician behavior, and assessment of the effect of mental health policy changes on practice. The challenges of conducting research within PBRNs are substantial, including difficulties in maintaining positive member relations, securing ongoing funding, sustaining productivity, overcoming IRB entanglements and achieving both scientific excellence in recruitment and measurement validity and utility for practitioner members.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study examined the association of homelessness and related factors with child psychiatric and behavior disorders (diagnosed with structured diagnostic interviews) and child cognitive ability (on the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test) in a randomly selected sample of 157 homeless children and their mothers and a comparison of 61 housed children and their mothers. Homeless children had more disruptive behavior disorders and lower cognitive scores than housed children. In multivariate analyses, maternal verbal scores and child nonverbal scores were associated with child verbal ability; maternal education, homelessness, and child nonverbal scores were related to child behavior disorders.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
July 2007
Objective: This article identifies behavioral trajectories of American Indian adolescents and examines their predictors.
Method: A total of 401 urban and reservation American Indian adolescents were interviewed yearly from 2001 to 2004 (with 341 youths, or 85%, retained to 2004, and 385 completing at least two interviews). The Youth Self-Report total problem score is used to model behavior change trajectories, with psychological (addictions and mental health) and environmental (family, peer, community, and services) variables as independent variables.
Reliable and valid assessment of abnormal speech patterns may enable earlier recognition of nonpsychotic disorders through characteristic speech patterns. This study sought to establish interrater reliability using a standardized guide for scoring. A scoring guide defining 27 elements (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: American-Indian adolescents have high rates of addiction and mental health problems but low rates of service use. The gap between service need and use appears to be even larger than the known gap for the general population, and few of the services are provided by specialists. This study examined receipt of treatment by American-Indian youths for addictions or mental health problems, the service provider who first identified a problem and sent a youth to treatment, and the extent to which the provider's knowledge and assessment predicted variance in service actions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCommunity Ment Health J
October 2002
This paper documents recent pilot efforts of the Psychoeducation Responsive to Family (PERF) model, a yearlong group for families with an adult member coping with mental illness. PERF advances state-of-the-art in its: (a) application in community settings; (b) utility for families coping with all types of mental illness; (c) use of a standardized model, yet retaining a flexible curriculum responsive to family group membership concerns; and (d) recruitment from one-day family workshops of participants eager to further explore their issues. This report examines changes in these families' knowledge and mastery in a small random assignment study comparing the PERF model (n = 9) with a "usual services" (n = 10) condition.
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