Identifying Barriers and Facilitators to Prenatal Care for Spanish-Speaking Women.

BACKGROUND Early access to quality prenatal care is an essential component of improving maternal and neonatal outcomes as it allows for early intervention and risk stratification. Women who receive late or infrequent prenatal care are at high risk for complications including preterm birth, infant death, and stillbirth. We sought to better understand the barriers Spanish-speaking women face in accessing quality prenatal care and to identify facilitators in obtaining timely quality prenatal care.METHODS We recruited a homogeneous group of 11 women with Spanish as their primary language who were pregnant or had given birth within the last six months. We then conducted two focus groups in Spanish. The focus groups were recorded, translated, and transcribed, and then coded using grounded theory.RESULTS In our cohort of participants, the three major themes included desire for psychosocial support, health care system logistics, and barriers due to Latinx ethnicity.LIMITATIONS Our study has several limitations, including a small sample size and single site design.CONCLUSION Latinx women experience unique barriers to care including language barriers, a lack of cultural competency on the part of health care personnel, and ethnic discrimination. Additional research is needed to develop patient-centered interventions to address these barriers.

Cost-effectiveness of alternative treatments for depression in low-income women.

BACKGROUND: Low-income mothers are more likely to experience depressive symptoms than their higher income counterparts, but they are less likely to receive treatment. One way to overcome common barriers to care for low-income women is to do therapy in the mother's home. AIMS OF THE STUDY: The objective of this study was to compare the cost-effectiveness of in-home interpersonal therapy (IPT) to two standard therapies for depression treatment: office based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and psychotropic medication. METHODS: This cost utility analysis used a Markov model with a 3-year time horizon to compare the cost-effectiveness of the alternate therapies from the public payer perspective. We followed a hypothetical cohort of 1,000 women age 19 to 35 years with depressive symptoms who had an income level at or below 200% of the federal poverty level. Costs were based on the number of women who completed the therapy. We used data from published literature on clinical trials with low-income minority women to determine the completion rates, duration, and effectiveness of each type of therapy. Additionally, costs for in-home IPT were calculated from unpublished trial data. Costs were determined using 2011 North Carolina Medicaid reimbursement rates; utility weights were taken from published literature. The endpoint was the total outpatient medical cost (therapy and outpatient medical visits). The study outcomes were depression free days (DFD), which were translated into quality of adjusted life years (QALY). We calculated the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of each therapy based on the number of QALYs gained. We conducted deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses to determine how robust the results were to uncertainty in the parameters. RESULTS: Treating patients with IPT resulted in an ICER of USD 13,479/QALY and USD 29,309/QALY as compared to CBT and medications, respectively. The results were most sensitive to the efficacy of IPT. Simulations showed that, with a threshold of USD 50,000/QALY, IPT was cost-effective 95% and 78% of the time as compared to CBT and medications, respectively. If policy makers were willing to pay USD 50,000 per QALY, IPT had a 0.586 probability of being the cost-effective option relative to medication and in-office CBT. DISCUSSION: Due to higher completion rates, in-home IPT cost more but resulted in more QALYs gained than the other therapies. Our results indicated that in-home IPT was cost-effective as compared to office-based CBT and at least as cost-effective as medication therapy. The analysis was based on limited data because there have been few randomized, controlled studies on treatments for depression in low-income women, however; additional studies are needed to improve the accuracy of the model. IMPLICATIONS FOR HEALTH POLICY: In coming years, the number of low-income women covered by public insurance should increase due to the Affordable Care Act. Given the high prevalence of depression in this population, it will be important to consider the value of potential resources spent on depression treatments. This study found that both in-home IPT and medication could be cost-effective treatments for depression. The results of this study support public payers reimbursing for in-home services.

Designing mobile support for glycemic control in patients with diabetes.

We assessed the feasibility and acceptability of using mobile phones as part of an existing Web-based system for collaboration between patients with diabetes and a primary care team. In design sessions, we tested mobile wireless glucose meter uploads and two approaches to mobile phone-based feedback on glycemic control. Mobile glucose meter uploads combined with graphical and tabular data feedback were the most desirable system features tested. Participants had a mixture of positive and negative reactions to an automated and tailored messaging feedback system for self-management support. Participants saw value in the mobile system as an adjunct to the Web-based program and traditional office-based care. Mobile diabetes management systems may represent one strategy to improve the quality of diabetes care.

Web-based collaborative care for type 1 diabetes: a pilot randomized trial.

BACKGROUND: To determine whether a Web-based diabetes case management program based in an electronic medical record can improve glycemic control (primary outcome) and diabetes-specific self-efficacy (secondary outcome) in adults with type 1 diabetes, a pilot randomized controlled trial was conducted. METHODS: A 12-month randomized trial tested a Web-based case management program in a diabetes specialty clinic. Patients 21-49 years old with type 1 diabetes receiving multiple daily injections with insulin glargine and rapid-acting analogs who had a recent A1C >7.0% were eligible for inclusion. Participants were randomized to receive either (1) usual care plus the nurse-practitioner-aided Web-based case management program (intervention) or (2) usual clinic care alone (control). We compared patients in the two study arms for changes in A1C and self-efficacy measured with the Diabetes Empowerment Scale. RESULTS: A total of 77 patients were recruited from the diabetes clinic and enrolled in the trial. The mean baseline A1C among study participants was 8.0%. We observed a nonsignificant decrease in average A1C (-0.48; 95% confidence interval -1.22 to 0.27; P = 0.160) in the intervention group compared to the usual care group. The intervention group had a significant increase in diabetes-related self-efficacy compared to usual care (group difference of 0.30; 95% confidence interval 0.01 to 0.59; P = 0.04). CONCLUSIONS: Use of a Web-based case management program was associated with a beneficial treatment effect on self-efficacy, but change in glycemic control did not reach statistical significance in this trial of patients with moderately poorly controlled type 1 diabetes. Larger studies may be necessary to further clarify the intervention's impact on health outcomes.