Paper
Sunday, November 4, 2007
108
Post Discharge Needs of African-Americans with Serious Mental Illness
Linda D. Gerson, PhD, RN, Cynthia Carbo, MSN, APRN-BC, and Linda Rose, PhD, RN. School of Nursing, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
| Learning Objective #1: identify mental health problems, coping resources, and illness related needs of African Americans with serious mental illness in the immediate post discharge phase. |
| Learning Objective #2: describe issues related to the feasibility of recruiting and retaining a sample of adults with serious mental illness recently discharged from inpatient hospitalization |
African Americans with mental illness are less likely to receive care for mental illness and more likely to receive poor quality care than their Caucasian counterparts. Only one third of African Americans with a mental illness receive any type of care. When they are treated, they are more likely than Caucasians to be re-hospitalized within a year of discharge from a psychiatric hospital. The immediate post-discharge phase of treatment may be crucial to long term adaptation to the community; yet no studies were found that investigated the responses of African American mentally ill persons to this critical transition period. Reasons for this more rapid relapse are unclear, but may be related to the stressors associated with re-entry to the community after intensive inpatient treatment, fewer resources to deal with health problems, and inadequate follow-up care. The specific aims of this study are to: 1) describe symptom severity, functional status, and coping of African American mentally ill patients in the immediate post-discharge phase; and 2) identify mental health problems and related needs experienced by African Americans with serious mental illness (SMI) and their families in the immediate post-discharge phase. Data from this preliminary study will provide important information about the post-discharge needs of a vulnerable population. These data will be used to develop a large scale clinical trial of a nurse led home based transitional care intervention for recently discharged seriously mentally ill patients. The study will also provide important insights into the feasibility, effectiveness, and cultural relevance of the data collection instruments. This pilot study is an important first step in a program of research targeted at addressing those health disparities.