Evaluating skills for psychological recovery with gunshot injury survivors in a hospital-based early intervention program.

Gun violence is a serious public health problem that places surviving victims at increased risk for a variety of mental health problems, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. Recognizing that many gunshot injury survivors lack access to mental health care in the early aftermath of a shooting, there has been growing interest in the use of early, preventive mental health interventions to help prevent long-term mental health complications like PTSD as part of routine care for survivors in acute medical settings, where initial outreach to survivors may be more successful. This study evaluates clinical outcomes associated with one such early intervention-Skills for Psychological Recovery (SPR)-provided to gunshot injury survivors as part of a hospital-based early intervention program embedded in a Level 1 trauma center in the Midwestern United States. Clinic data from 100 survivors (74.0% male, 78.0% Black/African American) who received SPR were included in the present study. Results suggest that receiving SPR in the early aftermath of a shooting is associated with statistically significant reductions in both PTSD, F(1, 26.77) = 22.49, p < .001, and depression, F(1, 29.99) = 6.49, p = .016, symptoms. Outcomes did not vary as a function of either PTSD risk status or intervention delivery method (i.e., in-person, telehealth). These findings support the effectiveness and acceptability of SPR as an early intervention for gunshot injury survivors when delivered as part of a hospital-based early intervention program. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Changes in Health Care Utilization and Associated Costs After Supportive Housing Placement by an Urban Community Mental Health Center.

Permanent supportive housing (PSH) for individuals experiencing homelessness and living with mental illness can reduce utilization of crisis care services and increase utilization of outpatient care, although the extent to which pre-housing utilization patterns influence post-housing utilization remains unclear. Therefore, pre- and post-housing health service utilization was examined in 80 individuals living with a chronic mental illness who were and were not utilizing health care services in the years pre- and post-housing. Overall, the proportion of tenants utilizing outpatient services, including outpatient behavioral health services, increased from pre- to post-housing. Tenants who did not use outpatient behavioral health services prior to housing were disproportionately less likely than their peers to use those services after being housed. Among tenants who utilized crisis care services prior to being housed, reductions were observed in the number of crisis care visits. Results suggest PSH leads to changes in health care utilization and associated costs.