Patient Experiences Completing Patient Reported Outcome Measures in Behavioral Health Within a Health Safety-Net Setting

Measurement based care (MBC), a practice that uses patient reported outcome measures (PROMs), is not widely used in behavioral health settings and little is known about the patient experience with MBC in safety-net settings. This study aimed to understand patient experiences completing PROMs on paper when presenting to an outpatient, behavioral health setting within a public safety-net hospital. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 participants in English and Spanish. Participants were 42 years old (SD = 12.7), mostly white (36.4%) and Black (31.8%). Thematic analysis was used to analyze findings. Overall, participants were engaged with PROMs and described them as helpful for themselves and their clinicians. Participants also expressed themes focused on PROMs user-friendliness, including formatting, time to complete measures, and participant characteristics such as attention and literacy. These findings are important to consider to ensure equitable access to MBC when implemented in behavioral health in the health safety-net setting.

A Nationwide Survey Study of Recovery Community Centers Supporting People in Recovery From Substance Use Disorder

OBJECTIVE

The medical community has become aware of its role in contributing to the opioid epidemic and must be part of its resolution. Recovery community centers (RCCs) represent a new underused component of recovery support.

METHODS

This study performed an online national survey of all RCCs identified in the United States, and used US Census ZIP code tabulation area data to describe the communities they serve.

RESULTS

Residents of areas with RCCs were more likely to be Black (16.5% vs 12.6% nationally, P = 0.005) and less likely to be Asian (4.7% vs 5.7%, P = 0.005), American Indian, or Alaskan Native (0.6% vs 0.8%, P = 0.03), or live rurally (8.5% vs 14.0%, P < 0.0001). More than half of RCCs began operations within the past 5 years. Recovery community centers were operated, on average, by 8.8 paid and 10.2 volunteer staff; each RCC served a median of 125 individuals per month (4-1,500). Recovery community centers successfully engaged racial/ethnic minority groups (20.8% Hispanic, 22.5% Black) and young adults (23.5% younger than 25 years). Recovery community centers provide addiction-specific support (eg, mutual help, recovery coaching) and assistance with basic needs, social services, technology access, and health behaviors. Regarding medications for opioid use disorder (MOUDs), RCC staff engaged members in conversations about MOUDs (85.2%) and provided direct support for taking MOUD (77.0%). One third (36.1%) of RCCs reported seeking closer collaboration with prescribers.

CONCLUSIONS

Recovery community centers are welcoming environments for people who take MOUDs. Closer collaboration between the medical community and community-based peer-led RCCs may lead to significantly improved reach of efforts to end the opioid epidemic.

Clinical harm reduction in substance use: An ethics-oriented primer and critique for hospital-based providers

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

Substance use-targeted harm reduction (HR) has successfully expanded from public health into clinical settings. Hospital-based providers are in positions to encounter, precipitate and/or mediate ethically fraught situations that can arise around clinical HR-informed interventions. We examine why these situations occur and how they might be better addressed.

METHOD

Literature focused on principles, ethics, and clinical implementation of HR are reviewed to identify core elements of this approach. Next, ethical vulnerabilities within those elements are identified and critiqued. A more productive discourse for acknowledging, voicing and addressing ethical dilemmas in HR is sought.

RESULTS

Public health orientation and humane concern for substance users, along with a strong anti-stigmatization mission and occasional aversion to a rigid medical model and 'establishment' contributed to HR's successes but can also frame any dissent over its methods as being stigma-fuelled. Practically distilled concepts from moral philosophy and the medical humanities can inform good faith discussions based on common-ground concern for patients.

CONCLUSION

HR's use in the general hospital and other clinical settings is a positive development, but one that brings with it new ethical demands. Broader knowledge of the principles of HR, of the application of those principles to the hospital setting, and of common-ground concepts from outside of HR could help facilitate productive ethical engagement around substance-using patients.

Leveraging the Full Continuum of Care to Prevent Opioid Use Disorder

Substance use disorder prevention programs are most effective when matched appropriately to the baseline risk of the population. Individuals who misuse opioids often have unique risk profiles different from those who use other substances such as alcohol or cannabis. However, most substance use prevention programs are geared toward universal audiences, neglecting key inflection points along the continuum of care. The HEAL Prevention Cooperative (HPC) is a unique cohort of research projects that represents a continuum of care, from community-level universal prevention to indicated prevention among older adolescents and young adults who are currently misusing opioids or other substances. This paper describes the theoretical basis for addressing opioid misuse and opioid use disorder across the prevention continuum, using examples from research projects in the HPC.

Economic Evaluation Design within the HEAL Prevention Cooperative

The rapid rise in opioid misuse, disorder, and opioid-involved deaths among older adolescents and young adults is an urgent public health problem. Prevention is a vital part of the nation's response to the opioid crisis, yet preventive interventions for those at risk for opioid misuse and opioid use disorder are scarce. In 2019, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) launched the Preventing Opioid Use Disorder in Older Adolescents and Young Adults cooperative as part of its broader Helping to End Addiction Long-term (HEAL) Initiative ( https://heal.nih.gov/ ). The HEAL Prevention Cooperative (HPC) includes ten research projects funded with the goal of developing effective prevention interventions across various settings (e.g., community, health care, juvenile justice, school) for older adolescent and young adults at risk for opioid misuse and opioid use disorder (OUD). An important component of the HPC is the inclusion of an economic evaluation by nine of these research projects that will provide information on the costs, cost-effectiveness, and sustainability of these interventions. The HPC economic evaluation is integrated into each research project's overall design with start-up costs and ongoing delivery costs collected prospectively using an activity-based costing approach. The primary objectives of the economic evaluation are to estimate the intervention implementation costs to providers, estimate the cost-effectiveness of each intervention for reducing opioid misuse initiation and escalation among youth, and use simulation modeling to estimate the budget impact of broader implementation of the interventions within the various settings over multiple years. The HPC offers an extraordinary opportunity to generate economic evidence for substance use prevention programming, providing policy makers and providers with critical information on the investments needed to start-up prevention interventions, as well as the cost-effectiveness of these interventions relative to alternatives. These data will help demonstrate the valuable role that prevention can play in combating the opioid crisis.

Diagnosing major depressive disorder and substance use disorder using the electronic health record: A preliminary validation study

Background

One mechanism to examine if major depressive disorder (MDD) is related to the development of substance use disorder (SUD) is by leveraging naturalistic data available in the electronic health record (EHR). Rules for data extraction and variable construction linked to psychometrics validating their use are needed to extract data accurately.

Objective

We propose and validate a methodologic framework for using EHR variables to identify patients with MDD and non-nicotine SUD.

Methods

Proxy diagnoses and index dates of MDD and/or SUD were established using billing codes, problem lists, patient-reported outcome measures, and prescriptions. Manual chart reviews were conducted for the 1-year period surrounding each index date to determine (1) if proxy diagnoses were supported by chart notes and (2) if the index dates accurately captured disorder onset.

Results

The results demonstrated 100% positive predictive value for proxy diagnoses of MDD. The proxy diagnoses for SUD exhibited strong agreement (Cohen's kappa of 0.84) compared to manual chart review and 92% sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value. Sixteen percent of patients showed inaccurate SUD index dates generated by EHR extraction with discrepancies of over 6 months compared to SUD onset identified through chart review.

Conclusions

Our methodology was very effective in identifying patients with MDD with or without SUD and moderately effective in identifying SUD onset date. These findings support the use of EHR data to make proxy diagnoses of MDD with or without SUD.

A systematic review of substance use screening in outpatient behavioral health settings

OBJECTIVE

Despite the frequent comorbidity of substance use disorders (SUDs) and psychiatric disorders, it remains unclear if screening for substance use in behavioral health clinics is a common practice. The aim of this review is to examine what is known about systematic screening for substance use in outpatient behavioral health clinics.

METHODS

We conducted a PRISMA-based systematic literature search assessing substance use screening in outpatient adult and pediatric behavioral health settings in PubMed, Embase, and PsycINFO. Quantitative studies published in English before May 22, 2020 that reported the percentage of patients who completed screening were included.

RESULTS

Only eight articles met our inclusion and exclusion criteria. Reported prevalence of screening ranged from 48 to 100%, with half of the studies successfully screening more than 75% of their patient population. There were limited data on patient demographics for individuals who were and were not screened (e.g., gender, race) and screening practices (e.g., electronic versus paper/pencil administration).

CONCLUSIONS

The results of this systematic review suggest that successful screening for substance use in behavioral health settings is possible, yet it remains unclear how frequently screening occurs. Given the high rates of comorbid SUD and psychopathology, future research is necessary regarding patient and clinic-level variables that may impact the successful implementation of substance use screening. Trial registry A methodological protocol was registered with the PROSPERO systematic review protocol registry (ID: CRD42020188645).

Superficial temporal artery injury and delayed post-cranioplasty infection

OBJECTIVE

Complications after cranioplasty after decompressive craniectomy (DC) have been reported to be as high as 40%. The superficial temporal artery (STA) is at substantial risk for injury in standard reverse question-mark incisions that are typically used for unilateral DC. The authors hypothesize that STA injury during craniectomy predisposes patients to post-cranioplasty surgical site infection (SSI) and/or wound complication.

METHODS

A retrospective study of all patients at a single institution who underwent cranioplasty after decompressive craniectomy and who underwent imaging of the head (computed tomography angiogram, magnetic resonance imaging with intravenous contrast, or diagnostic cerebral angiography) for any indication between the two procedures was undertaken. The degree of STA injury was classified and univariate statistics were used to compare groups.

RESULTS

Fifty-four patients met inclusion criteria. Thirty-three patients (61%) had evidence of complete or partial STA injury on pre-cranioplasty imaging. Nine patients (16.7%) developed either an SSI or wound complication after cranioplasty and, among these, four (7.4%) experienced delayed (>2 weeks from cranioplasty) complications. Seven of 9 patients required surgical debridement and cranioplasty explant. There was a stepwise but non-significant increase in post-cranioplasty SSI (STA present: 10%, STA partial injury: 17%, STA complete injury: 24%, P=0.53) and delayed post-cranioplasty SSI (STA present: 0%, STA partial injury: 8%, STA complete injury: 14%, P=0.26).

CONCLUSIONS

There is a notable but statistically non-significant trend toward increased rates of SSI in patients with complete or partial STA injury during craniectomy.

Treating PTSD and Alcohol Use Disorder: Concurrent Cognitive Processing Therapy and Psychopharmacology

Comorbidity is common with posttraumatic stress disorder, and alcohol use disorder (AUD) is among the most common co-occurring disorders. When viewed through the lens of avoidance behaviors, AUD can shape an individual's response to distressing trauma reminders by dulling the emotional response and promoting disengagement from the traumatic memory. Over time, this response strengthens posttraumatic distress by reinforcing the belief that traumatic memories and their emotional responses are themselves dangerous and intolerable. In turn, this belief may impede treatment progress. Concurrent trauma-focused therapy and AUD treatment can serve to establish more adaptive coping strategies. Reducing reliance on alcohol for coping while engaging safely and effectively with trauma memories allows the individual to process the memories, build tolerance to emotional distress, and ultimately reframe maladaptive trauma-related beliefs and decrease the intensity of reactions. This case presents concurrent psychopharmacology and cognitive processing therapy for co-occurring posttraumatic stress disorder and AUD. We explore how alcohol use, and emotional avoidance more broadly, become targets for change.

Clinical outcomes among distinct groups of patients with severe tricuspid valve regurgitation

Introduction

Severe tricuspid valve regurgitation (TR) is associated with increased 1-year morbidity and mortality. Characterization by valve etiology (primary, secondary, and lead-associated), a classification borrowed from mitral valve disease, has not been universally shown to correlate with outcomes.

Purpose

Among a large, racially diverse cohort with newly identified severe TR, we aimed to 1) characterize outcomes of severe TR by etiology, and 2) assess whether unsupervised phenoclustering or supervised outcome-driven prediction trees were more effective in establishing subgroups of TR with differential clinical risk profiles.

Methods

We retrospectively analyzed outcomes of 5-year all-cause death and a composite of death or heart failure hospitalization (HFH) among adult patients with new severe TR identified by echocardiography between 2007 to 2018 at a large academic tertiary referral center in the United States. Patients were initially categorized by etiology of TR, including primary, secondary, and lead-associated. Second, we separately applied unsupervised hierarchical clustering to identify distinct clusters using demographics, clinical, and echo data at the time of diagnosis. Third, we applied a supervised recursive partitioning algorithm (survival trees) by each outcome to identify distinct TR subgroups. We estimated the cumulative incidence of death and composite death or HFH over 5 years by 1) etiology of TR, 2) distinct clusters, and 3) groups identified by supervised learning (prediction trees).

Results

Among 2,379 consecutive patients with newly identified severe TR, the median age was 70 years, 61% were female, and 40% were Black. Event rates (95% CI) were 30.9 (29.0 to 32.8) events/100 PY for death and 49.0 (45.9 to 52.2) events/100 PY for composite death or HFH over median follow-up of 1.6 years. Event rates were similarly high across TR etiology groups for both death and composite death or HFH (Figure 1). Multiple methods of unsupervised clustering did not yield distinct clusters by patient demographic and imaging characteristics. After applying supervised survival tree modeling, four phenoclusters with distinct clinical prognoses were separately identified for death and composite death or HFH (Figure 2). Variables identified to partition the cohort to discriminate both death and composite death or HFH were age, albumin, blood urea nitrogen, right ventricular contractility, and right ventricular systolic pressure (all p&lt;0.05).

Conclusions

Five-year cumulative incidence of adverse events among patients with newly diagnosed severe TR was 69% for death and 80% for composite death or HFH. TR etiology did not stratify prognosis, while supervised survival tree models identified phenoclusters with distinct clinical risk. The identified subgroups of severe TR with differential outcomes offer insights towards enrichment in clinical trials of TR and risk/benefit analysis in patients undergoing TR therapies.

Funding Acknowledgement

Type of funding sources: Private company. Main funding source(s): Abbott

Polysomnography Following Traumatic Brain Injury: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Introduction

Sleep disturbances are common following traumatic brain injury (TBI) worsening morbidity and other neuropsychiatric symptoms. Post-TBI alterations in sleep architecture require further study.

Objectives

(1) To evaluate polysomnographic measures of sleep architecture in participants with history of TBI compared to controls and as meta-analyses of pooled means. (2) To evaluate effects of timing and severity of TBI on polysomnographic outcomes.

Methods

PRISMA compliant systematic review was conducted of MEDLINE, PsycINFO, EMBASE and Scopus. Inclusion criteria: 1) reporting polysomnography in the context of TBI and 2) operationalizing TBI using clear/formalized criteria. Data were pooled in random-effects meta-analyses with outcomes expressed as mean differences (MD).

Results

In participants with TBI, sleep was comprised of 19.39% REM sleep, 8.13% N1, 51.18% N2, and 17.53% N3, as determined by meta-analyses of single means. Total sleep time was reduced in chronic (>6 months) TBI compared to acute-intermediate TBI (<6 months) (p=0.01). Compared to controls, participants with TBI differed with increased N1 sleep (MD=0.64%; 95%CI=0.02,1.25; p=0.04), reduced sleep efficiency (MD=-1.65%; 95%CI=-3.18,-0.12; p=0.03), and reduced sleep latency on the multiple sleep latency test (MD=-5.90mins; 95%CI=-10.09,-1.72; p<0.01). On sub-group analyses, participants with mild TBI differed from controls with reduced total sleep time (MD=-29.22mins, 95%CI=-54.16,-4.27; p=0.02). Similarly, participants with acute-intermediate TBI exhibited increased sleep latency compared to controls (MD=8.96mins; 95%CI=4.07,13.85; p<0.01) and differed significantly from participants with chronic TBI (X2(1,N=608)=6.54; p=0.01).

Conclusions

Sleep architecture is altered following TBI with potential implications regarding functional outcomes and recovery. These alterations appear to differ based on severity of injury and time since injury.

Disclosure

No significant relationships.

Comparing Outcomes of COVID-19 vs NonCOVID-19 Lung Transplant Recipients on ECMO as a Bridge to Transplant

Purpose

Methods

Results

Conclusion

Characterizing autistic traits in treatment-seeking young adults with substance use disorders

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Recent work highlights an increase in the overlap of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and substance use disorder (SUD). Little is known about the presence of ASD symptoms in SUD-treatment-seeking populations.

METHODS

The informant-rated Social Responsiveness Scale-2 (SRS-2) was completed at intake to an outpatient SUD clinic for youth aged 16-26 (N = 69). Comparisons were made between those with elevated SRS-2 scores on demographic, psychiatric, and substance use variables.

RESULTS

Parents of sixty-nine patients with SUD completed the SRS-2. Fourteen (20%) (average age 18.7 ± 2.5) had elevated SRS-2 Total T-scores (≥66) and 55 (average age 18.1 ± 2.8) had non-clinical SRS-2 Total T-scores. There were few differences between groups; however, those with elevated SRS-2 Total T-scores were more likely to have a stimulant use disorder (odds ratio [OR] = 7.59, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.77, 101.88; p = 0.05) or an opioid use disorder (OR = 5.02, 95% CI = 0.59, 43.27; p = 0.08) than patients with normal SRS-2 Total T-scores as well as alcohol use in the week prior to intake.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

A significant proportion of treatment-seeking SUD outpatients suffer from clinically elevated autistic traits. These findings highlight the importance of assessing for autistic traits in SUD treatment settings yet additional research is needed to determine if these findings are specific to the presence of ASD or secondary to sequelae of specific SUD presentations.

SCIENTIFIC SIGNIFICANCE

This study is, to our knowledge, the first to have examined the prevalence, morbidity, or clinical characteristics, associated with ASD symptoms in a SUD-specific population.

D2-Hydroxyglutaric Aciduria Type II with Subdural Hemorrhage Identified in a 3-Month-Old Infant: A Case Report

Subdural hemorrhage in association with D2-hydroxyglutaric aciduria (D2-HGA) Type II has only been described once in the medical literature in a 15-month-old child (1). Our case report describes a much younger 3-month-old infant previously diagnosed with D2-HGA Type II, who presented clinically with seizures and identified to have bilateral subdural hematomas concerning for possible physical abuse. This case report discusses the genetic diagnosis of D2-HGA and interpretation of subdural hemorrhage in context of evaluating possible physical abuse concerns. When an underlying medical condition is known to be present and a child presents with findings that may be concerning for physical abuse, it is critical to consider the possibility that the underlying medical condition may contribute to or may be the cause of the findings.

Pharmacotherapy for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Retention in Outpatient Substance Use Disorder Treatment: A Retrospective Cohort Study

OBJECTIVE

To assess the relationship between short- and longer-term retention in outpatient substance use disorder (SUD) treatment and pharmacotherapy for comorbid attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

METHODS

In this retrospective cohort study conducted in a single addiction psychiatry clinic, electronic health record data from July 14, 2014, through January 15, 2020, were queried for clinical ADHD diagnosis (DSM-5 criteria), ADHD pharmacotherapy, treatment duration, demographic variables, comorbid psychiatric and SUD diagnoses, and buprenorphine therapy. Individuals with ADHD (n = 203) were grouped by ADHD pharmacotherapy status (171 receiving medication compared to 32 receiving none). Kaplan-Meier and Cox proportional hazards regression analyses were performed and assessed for significance.

RESULTS

ADHD was clinically diagnosed in 9.4% of outpatients and was associated with younger age, comorbid cocaine use, and private insurance (P < .001). Individuals receiving no ADHD pharmacotherapy were younger than those receiving medication (P = .003). Compared to no ADHD medication, ADHD pharmacotherapy was associated with greater long-term retention, with apparent group half-lives of 9 months and 36 months, respectively (P < .001). Individuals receiving no ADHD medication had a 4.9-fold increased likelihood of attrition within 90 days (P = .041). Regression analysis showed only ADHD pharmacotherapy to be significantly associated with treatment retention (hazard ratio = 0.59; 95% CI, 0.40-0.86; P = .008).

CONCLUSIONS

ADHD pharmacotherapy is robustly associated with improved short- and longer-term retention in outpatient SUD treatment. The retrospective, nonrandomized naturalistic study design limits causal inference. Further studies addressing unmeasured covariates and associated risks of treatment in adults with ADHD and SUD are necessary.