Group Education and Multidisciplinary Management for Chronic Headaches Among Adolescents in a Military Treatment Facility: A Retrospective Chart Review.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the effect of group education on the frequency of chronic headaches among adolescents. BACKGROUND: Chronic headaches are a common problem among adolescents with significant psychosocial morbidity. Brief education on lifestyle interventions to decrease headache frequency has established benefits among adult patients but is less proven among adolescents. METHODS: This study is a chart review examining our experience with a group education program for 155 adolescents, aged 12-17 years old, enrolled in the U.S. military medical system with at least 3 months of chronic headaches who were referred to a headache evaluation clinic. The primary outcome of our study was self-reported number of days with a headache in the previous 30 days based on patient recall. We used a paired samples t-test to measure the change in headache frequency between the frequency reported at the headache class and follow-up more than 6 months after the class. RESULTS: Most of the adolescents seen in the program were female (114/155 [73.5%]) and suffered from migraine headaches (108/155 [69.8%]). Severe headache-related disability was reported by 40.6% of subjects (63/155). Subjects reported an average of 19 days with headache during the previous 30 days. Females and patients with higher headache-related disability reported a higher number of days with headache. Participation in the group education was associated with an 11.5 (SD 11.9, P < .001) day decrease in the frequency of headaches during the previous 30 days at follow-up at least 6 months after the class, with largest decline seen in patients with the highest level of migraine-related disability at baseline. CONCLUSION: Based on our retrospective chart review study, group education on headache evaluation and lifestyle management has potential as an effective, low-cost intervention for treatment of chronic headaches among adolescents.

Children's health services in a "system of care": patterns of mental health, primary and specialty use.

OBJECTIVES: This study was designed to investigate demonstrable impacts of the Mental Health Services Program for Youth (MHSPY), a highly coordinated, intentionally integrated "system of care," on patterns of health service utilization for youth with multiple needs. METHODS: The MHSPY intervention is available to a target population of urban youth who face barriers to health care and are at risk for out-of-home placement. These youth are enrolled in a non-profit managed care organization (MCO). Patterns of medical, pharmacy, and mental health and substance abuse service use were compared for children aged 3 to 19 across insurance categories. RESULTS: Despite risks for access and engagement barriers to care, and for greater medical expense due to greater morbidity, MHSPY enrollees received significantly more ambulatory care per person-year than either the privately insured population or the Medicaid Standard population, and medical expense for MHSPY members was significantly lower than expected. During the four years studied, individuals in the privately insured and Medicaid Standard populations were less likely than MHSPY enrollees to have had an ambulatory pediatric visit (odds ratio [OR] 0.833, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.765, 0.908 and OR 0.823, 95% CI 0.775, 0.897, respectively). Medical expenses per member per month for MHSPY enrollees were significantly less than that for the similarly impaired Medicaid Disabled population with any medical claim (p < 0.001) or with any outpatient mental health claim (p < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Patterns of health care for subpopulations with known risk are important to identify to evaluate system-of-care effectiveness. The service utilization patterns for youth enrolled in the MHSYP system of care vs. those for similar MCO youth suggest health care access for individuals can be affected by delivery system design variables.