People working through substance abuse issues had fewer ER visits and better engagement with their doctors after going through a self-advocacy training intervention, a study found.
Helping patients with addiction tackle their health needs miragenews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from miragenews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
An intervention that teaches patients in addiction treatment how to better connect with their primary care medical team on both mental and physical health concerns resulted in long-term benefits over 5 years, including more primary care use and fewer substance-related emergency department visits, Kaiser Permanente researchers have found.
/PRNewswire/ An intervention that teaches patients in addiction treatment how to better connect with their primary care medical team on both mental and.
E-Mail
A detailed analysis of mental health treatment trends during the COVID-19 pandemic found a 7% increase in visits during the initial shelter-in-place period in 2020, compared with the same 3-month period in 2019.
The study, published in
The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry March 3, examined patient visits for psychiatric diagnoses among members of Kaiser Permanente in Northern California.
The greatest increases in visits were for substance use (up 51%), adjustment disorder (up 15%), anxiety (up 12%), bipolar disorder (up 9%), and psychotic disorder (up 6%). Adjustment disorder is diagnosed when someone responds to a stressful life event with symptoms such as sadness and hopelessness. The increases we found in patients seeking care for substance use and anxiety are consistent with other data showing the pandemic and shelter-in-place orders were difficult for many people, said lead author Kathryn Erickson-Ridout, MD, a psychiatrist with Kaiser Permanente in Northern Ca