Faculty Bibliography

This paper describes the effects of one U.S.-based public psychiatry clinic's shift to a centralized, corporate style of management, in response to pressures to cut expenditures by focusing on "evidence based" treatments. Participant observation research conducted between 2008 and 2012 for a larger study involving 127 interviews with policy makers, clinic managers, clinical practitioners and patients revealed that the shift heralded the decline of arts based therapies in the clinic, and of the social networks that had developed around them. It also inspired a participatory video self-documentary project among art group members, to portray the importance of arts-based therapies and garner public support for such therapies. Group members found a way to take action in the face of unilateral decision making, but experienced subsequent restrictions on clinic activities and discharge of core members from the clinic. The paper ends with a discussion of biopolitics, central legibility through corporate standardization, and the potential and risks of participatory documentaries to resist these trends.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE: Almost no literature compares current approaches to teaching cultural issues across U.S. psychiatry residency programs; the authors addressed this comparison. METHODS: The authors administered semistructured interviews of 20 instructors with substantial experience in the teaching of cultural issues in U.S. psychiatry residency programs, regarding the content, teaching techniques, institutional context, and evaluation of their curricula over time. RESULTS: Approaches varied according to the local populations served and the background of the instructors, all of whom were either cross-trained in social sciences and humanities or were themselves ethnic, racial, or sexual minorities. Common themes emerged, including the use of experiential approaches, the lack of integration of cultural issues into clinical supervision or courses on other topics, and the absence of formal course evaluation. DISCUSSION: Findings indicate a need for integration of cultural concepts into a variety of settings throughout residency, for development of faculty who are cross-trained in social sciences and humanities, and for curriculum-evaluation strategies.

OBJECTIVES: To qualitatively explore clinician and pharmacist attitudes toward using a Web application virtual pharmacist-clinician partnership (VPCP) to assist with comanaged care of illicit drug-using patients prescribed postexposure prophylaxis (PEP). DESIGN: Qualitative, descriptive, nonexperimental study. SETTING: New York City (NYC) from February 2011 to March 2012. PARTICIPANTS: Four pharmacists and nine clinicians. INTERVENTION: In-depth interviews. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Potential impact of the VPCP on pharmacist-clinician communication and potential barriers to use of the VPCP when comanaging PEP patients among pharmacists and clinicians. RESULTS: Pharmacists and clinicians were supportive of an interactive Web application that would expand the role of pharmacists to include assistance with PEP access and patient management. Participants noted that the VPCP would facilitate communication between pharmacists and clinicians and have potential to support adherence among patients. Pharmacists and clinicians were concerned about not having time to use the VPCP and security of patient information on the site. Pharmacist and clinician concerns informed final development of the VPCP, including creation of a user-friendly interface, linkage to users' e-mail accounts for timeline notification, and attention to security. CONCLUSION: Use of Web-based technology to support communication between pharmacists and clinicians was seen as being a potentially feasible method for improving patient care, particularly in the delivery of PEP to drug users and other high-risk groups. These findings highlight the need for further study of a technology-supported partnership, particularly for comanagement of patients who face challenges with adherence.

Depression is more common among drug users (15-63 %) than the general population (5-16 %). Lack of social support network members may be associated with low mental health service (MHS) use rates observed among drug users. We investigated the relationship between social network members' roles and MHS use among frequent drug users using Social Ties Associated with Risk of Transition into Injection Drug Use data (NYC 2006-2009). Surveys assessed depression, MHS use, demographics, drug use and treatment, and social network members' roles. Participants reporting lifetime depressive episode with start/end dates and information on social/risk network members were included (n = 152). Adjusting for emotional support and HIV status, having one or more informational support network members remained associated with MHS use at last depressive episode (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) 3.37, 95 % confidence interval (CI) 1.38-8.19), as did history of drug treatment (AOR 2.75, 95 % CI 1.02-7.41) and no legal income (AOR 0.23, 95 % CI 0.08-0.64). These data suggest that informational support is associated with MHS utilization among depressed drug users.

Objective measures of drug use are very important in treatment outcome studies of persons with substance use disorders, but obtaining and interpreting them can be challenging and not always practical. Thus, it is important to determine if, and when, drug-use self-reports are valid. To this end we explored the relationships between urine drug screen results and self-reported substance use among adolescents and young adults with opioid dependence participating in a clinical trial of buprenorphine-naloxone. In this study, 152 individuals seeking treatment for opioid dependence were randomized to a 2-week detoxification with buprenorphine-naloxone (DETOX) or 12weeks of buprenorphine-naloxone (BUP), each with weekly individual and group drug counseling. Urine drug screens and self-reported frequency of drug use were obtained weekly, and patients were paid $5 for completing weekly assessments. At weeks 4, 8, and 12, more extensive assessments were done, and participants were reimbursed $75. Self-report data were dichotomized (positive vs. negative), and for each major drug class we computed the kappa statistic and the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of self-report using urine drug screens as the "gold standard". Generalized linear mixed models were used to explore the effect of treatment group assignment, compensation amounts, and participant characteristics on self-report. In general, findings supported the validity of self-reported drug use. However, those in the BUP group were more likely to under-report cocaine and opioid use. Therefore, if used alone, self-report would have magnified the treatment effect of the BUP condition.

Growing awareness of health and health care disparities highlights the importance of including information about race, ethnicity, and culture (REC) in health research. Reporting of REC factors in research publications, however, is notoriously imprecise and unsystematic. This article describes the development of a checklist to assess the comprehensiveness and the applicability of REC factor reporting in psychiatric research publications. The 16-item GAP-REACH checklist was developed through a rigorous process of expert consensus, empirical content analysis in a sample of publications (N = 1205), and interrater reliability (IRR) assessment (N = 30). The items assess each section in the conventional structure of a health research article. Data from the assessment may be considered on an item-by-item basis or as a total score ranging from 0% to 100%. The final checklist has excellent IRR (kappa = 0.91). The GAP-REACH may be used by multiple research stakeholders to assess the scope of REC reporting in a research article.