MedTrace Logo

Do Consumer Providers Enhance Recovery?

NCT00781079 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 285

Last updated 2018-10-11

Study results available
· View outcomes & findings →

Summary

Serious mental illness (SMI) is the second most costly disorder treated in the VHA, yet clinical outcomes for these patients in public sector settings are often poor due to a combination of low quality care and severe cognitive and functional impairments evidenced by this group. While these problems are multifaceted, studies outside the VHA have shown that using "consumer providers" (CPs) can improve and augment public care. Similar to recovering addiction counselors, CPs are individuals with SMI who use their lived experiences to provide services to others with SMI. CPs can reach out to patients that are difficult to engage, assist patients with tasks of daily living, offer a variety of rehabilitation (vocational, social, residential) services, be role models and offer hope for recovery, and facilitate support groups. Randomized controlled and quasi-experimental trials, all done outside the VHA, have shown that CPs can provide services that yield at least equivalent patient outcomes with particular benefits noted on intensive case management teams. Based on these successes both the President's New Freedom Commission and the Veteran Administration's Mental Health Strategic Plan call for broader dissemination of CPs as way to make mental health services more recovery-oriented, a recent national priority. Because of these recent calls, employing mentally ill veterans has just begun, although no effort has been made to evaluate their impact inside the VA mental health system. Yet its success outside the VHA and the recent emphasis on recovery-oriented care suggests the need to test this model in the VHA.

Conditions

  • Mental Disorder

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Consumer Provider

Adding a Consumer Provider to Intensive Case Management Teams (called MHICM in the VA)

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • VA Office of Research and Development

    lead FED

Principal Investigators

  • Matthew J. Chinman, PhD · VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System University Drive Division, Pittsburgh, PA

  • Amy N. Cohen, PhD · VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, West Los Angeles, CA

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
Masking
NONE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2008-04-30
Primary Completion
2011-04-30
Completion
2012-01-31

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

More Related Trials

Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT00781079 on ClinicalTrials.gov