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Biomedical subjects

Steven Banks

Publications and source records attributed to Steven Banks.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

Violence and mental illness: a new analytic approach.

Empirical studies of violence and mental illness have used many different methods. Current state-of-the-art methods gather information from both subject and collateral interviews as well as official records. Typically these sources are treated as additive. Any report of a violent incident from any source is treated as true and all reported incidents are added to generate estimates of frequency. This paper presents a new statistical technique that uses the level of agreement between the sources of data to adjust those estimates. The evidence suggests that, although the additive technique for using multiple sources correctly estimates how many people are involved, it substantially underestimates the number of incidents. The new technique substantially reduces both false negatives and false positives.

Humans↗

The contribution of consensus within staff and client groups as well as concordance between staff and clients to treatment engagement.

Two nonspecific organizational factors-consensus, defined as agreement within staff and client groups, and concordance, defined as agreement between staff and client groups-were shown to influence client engagement in treatment in a national sample of 80 residential substance abuse treatment programs including 595 staff and 3,732 clients. Agreement was tested using a combined therapeutic community, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and 12-step treatment scale completed by staff and clients. Treatment engagement was measured by the combined scores on the three scales completed by the clients, including engagement, rapport with the counseling process, and confidence in treatment. Within-group consensus was measured by the standard deviations of the mean scores, whereas between-groups concordance was measured by the standard error of the difference between staff and client mean scores. Regression analyses showed that staff consensus was a significant independent predictor of client treatment engagement (p < .05), whereas client consensus approached significance (p < .10). Concordance was also a significant predictor of client engagement (p < .002) after controlling for staff and client consensus. The potential contribution of the findings to a better understanding of program quality and effectiveness of programmatic interventions is discussed.

Adult↗

Employment transitions for clubhouse members.

Using a longitudinal dataset which followed 2195 individuals employed in 3379 separate job placements over a four-year period, this paper explores movement between the employment supports, [Transitional (TE), Supported (SE), and Independent Employment (IE)], offered by clubhouses. Sixty-four percent of employed members held only one job (N=1395) and 36% held multiple jobs during the study (N=791). Patterns of movement were consistent for transitions between the first and second job and subsequent transitions. Forty-six percent of individuals holding multiple jobs moved from one employment type to another. When movement occurred clubhouse members were significantly more likely to move from employment types offering more supports to those that offer less supports.

Career Mobility↗

Outcomes for women with co-occurring disorders and trauma: program and person-level effects.

Six-month outcomes are evaluated from a 9-site quasi-experimental study of women with mental health and substance use disorders who have experienced physical or sexual abuse who enrolled in either comprehensive, integrated, trauma-informed, and consumer/survivor/recovering person-involved services (N = 1023) or usual care (N = 983). Mental health, post-traumatic stress symptoms, and substance use outcomes are assessed with multilevel regression models, controlling for program and personal characteristics. Person-level variables predict outcomes independent of intervention condition and, to a small extent, moderate intervention and program effects. In sites where the intervention condition provided more integrated counseling than the comparison condition, there are increased effects on mental health and substance use outcomes; these effects are partially mediated by person-level variables. These results encourage further research to identify the longer-term effects of integrated counseling for women with co-occurring disorders and trauma histories.

Adult↗

Neutrophil stimulation with granulocyte colony-stimulating factor worsens ventilator-induced lung injury and mortality in rats.

BACKGROUND: Based on the association between the neutrophil and ventilator-induced lung injury, the authors hypothesized that neutrophil inhibition with fucoidin would be beneficial and stimulation with granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) would be harmful in a rat model of lethal ventilator-induced lung injury. METHODS: Animals (n = 111) were randomly assigned to be pretreated with fucoidin, G-CSF, or placebo (control) before 4 h of low-tidal-volume (10 ml/kg) or high-tidal-volume (40 ml/kg) mechanical ventilation. RESULTS: All low-volume animals survived. With high volumes, compared with controls, fucoidin did not improve survival (3 of 20 control animals and 5 of 20 fucoidin animals died; P = 0.51) but G-CSF significantly worsened it (18 of 22 animals died; P < 0.001). Circulating neutrophils were increased early with G-CSF and late with fucoidin with low and high tidal volumes (P < 0.05 for each treatment and tidal volume). Fucoidin decreased lung neutrophils, but these were only significant with high tidal volumes, whereas G-CSF increased lung neutrophils but only significantly with low tidal volumes (P < or = 0.01 for each). Fucoidin did not alter any cardiopulmonary measure significantly. Compared with control, G-CSF increased airway pressures with high tidal volumes and worsened lung edema and arterial oxygen with both tidal volumes (P < 0.05 for each). CONCLUSIONS: In this model, neutrophil stimulation by G-CSF increased lung dysfunction and with high tidal volumes worsened survival rates. Extrapolated clinically, neutrophil stimulation either by agents such as G-CSF or conditions such as sepsis may aggravate ventilator-induced lung injury.

Animals↗

An actuarial model of violence risk assessment for persons with mental disorders.

OBJECTIVES: An actuarial model was developed in the MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study to predict violence in the community among patients who have recently been discharged from psychiatric facilities. This model, called the multiple iterative classification tree (ICT) model, showed considerable accuracy in predicting violence in the construction sample. The purpose of the study reported here was to determine the validity of the multiple ICT model in distinguishing between patients with high and low risk of violence in the community when applied to a new sample of individuals. METHODS: Software incorporating the multiple ICT model was administered with independent samples of acutely hospitalized civil patients. Patients who were classified as having a high or a low risk of violence were followed in the community for 20 weeks after discharge. Violence included any battery with physical injury, use of a weapon, threats made with a weapon in hand, and sexual assault. RESULTS: Expected rates of violence in the low- and high-risk groups were 1 percent and 64 percent, respectively. Observed rates of violence in the low- and high-risk groups were 9 percent and 35 percent, respectively, when a strict definition of violence was used, and 9 percent and 49 percent, respectively, when a slightly more inclusive definition of violence was used. These findings may reflect the "shrinkage" expected in moving from construction to validation samples. CONCLUSIONS: The multiple ICT model may be helpful to clinicians who are faced with making decisions about discharge planning for acutely hospitalized civil patients.

Actuarial Analysis↗

Modified TC for MICA offenders: crime outcomes.

The study randomly assigned male inmates with co-occurring serious mental illness and chemical abuse (MICA) disorders to either modified therapeutic community (MTC) or mental health (MH) treatment programs. On their release from prison, MICA inmates who completed the prison MTC program could enter the MTC aftercare program. The results, obtained from an intent-to-treat analysis of all study entries, showed that inmates randomized into the MTC group had significantly lower rates of reincarceration compared with those in the MH group. The results also show that differences between the MTC + aftercare and comparison group across a variety of crime outcomes (i.e. any criminal activity, and alcohol or drug related criminal activity) are consistent and significant, and persist after an examination of various threats to validity (e.g. initial motivation, duration of treatment, exposure to risk). This study provides some support for the effectiveness of the prison TC only condition. The findings are encouraging and consonant with other studies of integrated prison and aftercare TC programs for substance abusing non-MICA offenders, although qualified by the possibility that selection bias (i.e. differences in motivation on entry into aftercare) may be operating. Nevertheless, given the available evidence and the need for effective programming for MICA offenders, program and policy makers should strongly consider developing integrated prison and aftercare modified TC programs for MICA offenders.

Adult↗

Inpatient hospitalizations and emergency service visits among participants in an Individual Placement and Support (IPS) model program.

Supported employment (SE) is considered an "evidence-based" practice for people with serious mental illness. We examined inpatient hospitalizations and emergency service visits among clients in a SE program based on the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) model in comparison to a propensity score matched group of clients who did not participate in IPS. A significant interaction showed that only IPS/SE clients who were also high in regular mental health services had fewer hospitalizations and emergency service visits than matched controls. The interaction effect was moderate, even when we controlled for client functioning. These findings provide support for the integration of mental health and vocational rehabilitation services, a key feature of evidence-based SE services.

Adult↗

Evaluation of an Individual Placement and Support model (IPS) program.

While randomized clinical trials (RCTs) have helped to establish Individual Placement and Support (IPS) programs as an evidence-based practice, it is important to evaluate whether "real world" IPS programs can be implemented with fidelity and achieve outcomes comparable to programs evaluated in RCTs. The current evaluation examined retrospectively employment outcomes for go participants from an IPS-model Services for Employment and Education (SEE) program in Massachusetts over a 4.5-year period. Evaluators accessed demographic, functioning, and employment data from three sources--SEE program records/database, clinical records, and the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health Client Tracking system. Results indicate that the SEE program maintained high IPS fidelity and achieved employment outcomes comparable or superior to other SE and IPS model programs described in the literature.

Adult↗

Increasing the use of formal services by caregivers of people with dementia.

This study evaluated the impact of an information and referral intervention designed to help family caregivers of people with dementia obtain needed health and human services. Caregivers (N = 608) of community-residing people with dementia were surveyed about their need for and use of community services. Of the 608 caregivers, 203 agreed to be referred to a staff member of an Alzheimer's Association chapter to get help finding needed health and community services. The results of a logistic regression indicated that education, marital status, and perceptions about the helpfulness of services were significant predictors of wanting a referral. The information and referral help given by staff of the Alzheimer's Association chapters resulted in a significant increase in the use of human services, but no change in the use of health services. Practice implications are discussed.

Caregivers↗

Longitudinal patterns of offending during the transition to adulthood in youth from the mental health system.

Arrest rates among the population of youth who have been served in child mental health systems are known to be high during adolescence and young adulthood, but individual longitudinal patterns have not been examined. The present study used developmental trajectory modeling, a contemporary method used widely in criminology, to examine clusters of individual criminal justice involvement patterns at ages 8 through 25, from database records of 131 individuals in public adolescent mental health services. Three groups of particular concern emerged: one with increasingly high offense rates and two with moderate to high violent offense rates that did not desist. Offense patterns in these groups indicate that early intervention should occur before age 15. Some risk factors were identified. Peak offending for most groups occurred between ages 18 and 20. Implications of these findings for mental health services during the transition to adulthood are offered.

Adolescent↗