Relation of Mental Health to Alcohol and Substance Use Among Texas College Students.

We examined the effect of mental health problems and difficulties on alcohol, tobacco, and other drug (ATOD) use among college students by using the 2013 Texas College Survey of Substance Use (n=11,216), which includes the K6 screening scale for severe mental illness (SMI). Students' K6 scores were used to classify them into 3 groups: those likely to have SMI (9% with scores ≥ 13), those with some mental health problems (36%), and those without mental health issues (55% with scores ≤ 4). Questions regarding ATOD use were analyzed using these 3 groups. Alcohol use was not significantly associated with K6 scores, although problematic alcohol behaviors as measured by the CAGE test were. Higher cigarette use was significantly associated with higher K6 scores. Finally, both higher marijuana and higher drug use (across 9 other individual drugs) were significantly associated with higher K6 scores. Although higher K6 scores were associated with higher rates of drug use, most students with high K6 scores did not use drugs. However, given the higher level of risk, drug and alcohol interventions should be made available for those students who receive mental health counseling.

Factor structure of the Mental Health Statistics Improvement Program (MHSIP) Family and Youth satisfaction surveys.

Two studies of the Mental Health Statics Improvement Project (MHSIP) Family and Youth consumer satisfaction surveys factor structure and psychometrics were conducted. In study 1, the 2002-2006 Youth Services Survey for Families (N = 6,007) was administered to parents of children receiving services, and in study 2, the 2002-2004 Youth Services Survey (N = 1,718) was administered to children age 12-18 receiving services. Factor analyses across both studies found five factors that strongly supported the hypothesized scale domains of outcomes, satisfaction, cultural sensitivity, participation, and access. Scales based on these factors had good reliability with an average coefficient alpha of 0.85. The average convergent validity correlation between scale scores from the parent and child surveys was r = 0.62. Overall, the results supported the structure, reliability, and validity of the surveys.

General medical care external hospitalizations for patients in Texas state mental health hospitals.

We explored the characteristics of general medical hospital admissions for patients in state mental health hospitals. Data were extracted from a statewide database of all hospital discharges for 5 years identified as general medical hospital admissions that occurred during the stay of patients at state mental health hospitals. Across the 9 mental health hospitals in the state system, rates of admission to general medical hospitals varied significantly from 0.7% to 3.7%. On average, of the 1.9% of all state mental health inpatients who had a general hospital admission, 25% occurred within 4 days of admission to the mental hospital. The average general hospitalization lasted 5.7 days. The reported total charge for all stays was $34 million. Dehydration (15%), hypertension (10%), and diabetes (10%) were the most frequent diagnoses. Thirteen percent of diagnoses met preventable hospitalization criteria. Given the variability among hospitals in admission rates and the number of preventable conditions, improvements in patient care and health as well as reduced admissions to general medical hospitals may be possible.

Meta-analysis of the factor structures of four depression questionnaires: Beck, CES-D, Hamilton, and Zung.

Four separate metaanalyses of factor analyses were conducted for the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD), and the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS). The total number of participants (N) and studies (k) included in each of the metaanalyses were the following: BDI (N = 13,643, k = 33), CES-D (N = 22,340, k = 28), HRSD (N = 2,606, k = 17), and SDS (N = 12,621, k = 13). Metaanalysis results suggest that the specific depression symptom factors within each test appear to be relatively robust and well established and match fairly closely previously hypothesized factor structures. A general Depression Severity factor and a small Somatic Symptoms factor are found in all four tests and two tests had a small Positive Affect factor. There were fewer common specific depression symptom factors across tests than expected.