|
By: American Psychiatric Association and the National Alliance on Mental Illness
Arlington, VA
Primary Investigators: Annelle B. Primm, MD, MPH, Director, APA Minority and National Affairs;
Majose Carrasco, Director, NAMI, Multicultural Action Center
On this page:
Project Description
The Decreasing Disparities in Depression: An APA-NAMI Collaborative project proposes to develop and evaluate a CME intervention designed to equip physicians practicing in primary care settings with the knowledge and tools to identify and provide appropriate treatment of depression across the lifecycle to eliminate disparities and provide high quality depression care to medically underserved ethnic and racial groups. It aims to:
1) create awareness of cultural influences and how depression manifests within a cultural context;
2) model successful communication and partnership between providers and patients of different cultures; and
3) promote desire for continuing education in this area.
Using a train-the-training approach, this intervention will implement a curriculum and toolkit to educate expert psychiatrists and experience family members and consumer to serve as trainers for three pilot activities with groups of family physicians, physicians in internal medicine, obstetricians and gynecologists, and pediatricians.
Progress Report: July 2007
For more than a decade, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) have been working together to build relationships among care providers and their patients. With their grant, the APA and NAMI are collaboratively designing a curriculum intended to help primary care physicians better recognize and treat depression in racial and ethnic minorities, and to improve physician-patient communication about depression.
The first draft of the curriculum, “Decreasing Disparities in Depression Recognition and Diagnosis in the Primary Care Setting,” has been developed based on the outcomes of a 3-hour focus group held in February 2007, involving 9 physicians (primary care providers and psychiatrists) and 5 patients recruited through NAMI’s multicultural and leadership councils’ listservs. The work consists of 3 parts: 1) Setting the Stage, a discussion of depression, cultural influences in mental illness, principles of and barriers to quality care, and recovery; 2) Recognition and Diagnosis, an examination of co-morbidity issues and depression assessment tools; and 3) Treatment and Referral, which looks at effective treatment techniques and educational resources.
The curriculum will be pilot tested this summer in Los Angeles, New Orleans, and a to-be-determined city in the Midwest. Facilitators are being trained to lead the programs.
|
