Depression Care More Effective With Community Involvement
Involving community groups in the planning and implementation of depression care initiatives in low-income communities improved patients’ mental health, according to papers recently published online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
Researchers from the RAND Corporation and UCLA compared a broad community engagement approach with an approach where only technical support was provided to individual community programs in two large, under-resourced communities in Los Angeles in 2010 and 2011.
When an array of community groups, including churches and barbershops, were involved in the planning and carrying out of depression services, participants had improved mental health, increased exercise, decreased hospitalizations related to behavior issues, and a lowered risk of homelessness, researchers found. That’s compared to when technical assistance alone was provided to individual mental health, substance abuse, and other programs in the community.
The chance of having formal therapy for depression and antidepressants remained the same—low—among participants in both the community-engagement and technical-support-only approaches. According to researchers, access to such evidence-based care in the neighborhoods studied was poor due to cost, stigma, and other issues.
But involving community groups in depression care planning, and then providing training to address depression jointly among healthcare and community agencies, improved support for patients and, ultimately, enhanced their ability to cope. For example, some older adults with depression benefitted from exercise classes offered by senior centers and parks. Others with substance abuse issues took advantage of a book club centered on the book Beating Depression: The Journey to Hope, which was offered by a substance abuse program.
"People who received help as a part of the community-led effort to improve depression care were able to do a better job navigating through the daily challenges of life," said psychiatrist Kenneth Wells, MD, MPH, the project's lead RAND investigator. "People became more stable in their lives and were at lower risk of facing a personal crisis, such as experiencing poor quality of life or becoming homeless."
—Jolynn Tumolo
References
3. Involving community group in depression care improves coping among low-income patients, study finds [press release]. Washington, DC: EurekAlert!; June 25, 2013.
