A prospective examination of high-cost health services utilization among drug using prisoners reentering the community.

The use of health services by prisoners during their incarceration and after their return to the community impacts the U.S. health care system and health care costs associated with this system. These health care costs are expected to increase over the next decade as more prisoners return to their communities. The current study prospectively examines the use of high-cost health care services-emergency room visits and hospitalizations-among 565 male drug-abusing prisoners about 1 year after prison release. A series of structural equation models were used to examine predisposing factors, including health status and drug use, and to estimate the frequency of high-cost health service utilization. As expected, health status was the most robust predictor of high-cost health services. However, the finding that drug abuse had nonsignificant relationships with high-cost health services utilization was not expected. Discussion focuses on health care service issues and health problems as prisoners' transition from prison to the community.

Cancer caregiving and subjective stress: a multi-site, multi-dimensional analysis.

Although research has emerged documenting the psychosocial impact of family care for cancer patients, few efforts capture the multi-dimensional nature of cancer caregiving stress, particularly among socioeconomically diverse samples. Utilizing data collected from cancer caregivers at a non-urban, Southern US site and an inner-city, Northeastern US site (N=233), the present study identified predictors of multiple dimensions of caregivers' subjective stress (i.e. emotional appraisals of care demands). Various indicators representing the sociodemographic context of care, cancer care demands, and psychosocial resources were found to exacerbate or buffer caregivers from feelings of exhaustion, role entrapment, and loss of intimacy with the cancer patient. The multivariate regression model also emphasized the diffuse yet potent role care recipient mood problems and caregiver mastery/optimism have on multiple dimensions of subjective stress. The findings offer a number of recommendations for future research and practice focused on informal cancer care.

Effectiveness of cognitive therapy for depression in a community mental health center: a benchmarking study.

The current study examined the feasibility and effectiveness of transporting an empirically supported treatment for depression, cognitive therapy (CT), to a community mental health center setting. CT was delivered to 192 adult outpatients with major depression, and a benchmarking strategy compared results with those of 2 randomized controlled trials (RCTs). The 3 samples were largely similar in terms of initial severity of depression, and CT was as effective in reducing depressive symptoms in the current sample as in the RCTs. More favorable outcome was associated with less severe initial depression, more therapy sessions, more years of education, and absence of a comorbid personality disorder. This study demonstrates that an empirically supported treatment can be transported effectively to a clinical setting.