Characteristics of Enrollees in the Supported Employment Demonstration

Assessing Substance Use Disorder Among Social Security Administration Disability Applicants

OBJECTIVE

Co-occurrence of substance use disorder and mental illness complicates treatment and is associated with increased disability. However, identification of substance use disorder in populations recently engaged in treatment can be challenging. This study aimed to examine traditional screening tools for substance use disorder and proxy characteristics (i.e., demographic characteristics, behaviors, and diagnoses) as predictors of clinician-observed substance use disorder.

METHODS

The Supported Employment Demonstration, funded by the Social Security Administration, studied 2,960 adults whose applications for disability benefits because of mental illness were recently denied. In a subsample (N=1,354) for whom substance use disorder was determined by community-based teams during follow-up, the authors used logistic regression to identify baseline predictors of observed substance use disorder and compared the sensitivity and specificity of detection by using standardized screening tools (Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test [AUDIT], 10-item Drug Abuse Screening Test [DAST-10]) with detection via decision trees based on proxy characteristics.

RESULTS

Using decision trees based on a combination of personal characteristics (sensitivity=0.47, specificity=0.83, area under the curve [AUC]=0.71) or personal characteristics including diagnostic data (sensitivity=0.54, specificity=0.81, AUC=0.72) provided more accurate identification of substance use disorder than using a combination of the AUDIT and DAST-10 (sensitivity=0.34, specificity=0.88, AUC=0.61). Adding the combined AUDIT and DAST-10 substance use disorder indicator to either tree negligibly improved accuracy.

CONCLUSIONS

In populations recently engaged in treatment, for whom standardized substance use disorder screening tools are less accurate than expected, consideration of personal characteristics could improve the detection of substance use disorder essential for treatment planning.

Barriers to Client Engagement and Strategies to Improve Participation in Mental Health and Supported Employment Services

OBJECTIVE

A few clients in every mental health center present challenging behaviors, have difficulty engaging in services, and create stress within the treatment team. The authors provided consultations on clients with these characteristics over 4 years in the Social Security Administration's Supported Employment Demonstration (SED).

METHODS

Four experienced community mental health leaders provided consultations on 105 of nearly 2,000 clients receiving team-based behavioral health and employment services in the SED. Using document analysis, consultants coded their notes and identified themes that described barriers to client engagement and strategies teams used to overcome them.

RESULTS

Clients who were difficult to engage experienced complex and interacting behavioral health, medical, and social conditions, which made it hard for therapists to develop therapeutic relationships and help clients find employment. Faced with engagement barriers, staff were often discouraged and felt hopeless about achieving success. To address these barriers, consultants and teams developed several strategies: using supervisors and teammates for support, providing persistent outreach, pursuing referrals and consultations to help with complex conditions, and developing realistic goals.

CONCLUSIONS

Supervisors, team leaders, and consultants in community mental health settings should help staff develop realistic strategies to manage the small number of clients whose behaviors present the greatest challenges. Effective strategies involve providing team-based outreach and support, fostering staff morale, obtaining specialist consultations regarding complex conditions, and calibrating realistic goals.

The Psychiatric Nurse Care Coordinator on a Multi-disciplinary, Community Mental Health Treatment Team

Community mental health nurses sometimes join multi-disciplinary teams, but the role has not been defined and studied carefully. This article describes the psychiatric Nurse Care Coordinator (NCC)-a unique position created to support care management, facilitate systematic medication management, and coordinate medical care in the Social Security Administration's 30-site Supported Employment Demonstration. The authors reviewed the study's NCC manual, supervised and consulted with the NCCs weekly over nearly three years, and reviewed data on NCC activities. Although the 984 participants assigned to NCCs experienced numerous mental health, substance use, and chronic medical conditions, only 59% completed intake assessments and engaged over time with NCCs. For those 581 participants, NCCs spent approximately 51% of their time helping with mental health issues, 35% on medical care, and 12% on substance use conditions. The NCC was critically important for complex, high-need individuals.

Participation in Individual Placement and Support in the Supported Employment Demonstration

Individual placement and support (IPS) was the primary intervention in the United States Social Security Administration's supported employment demonstration (SED), a large randomized trial that sought to increase employment and reduce disability among those whose first application for disability benefits was denied. Researchers developed a measure of participation in IPS services to quantify participation among enrollees assigned to receive IPS. The IPS participation measure, which IPS teams completed monthly for individual clients, recorded clients assigned to IPS as being either out of contact with their IPS treatment teams or, if in contact, according to their employment status (employed or not employed) and receipt of IPS job search services (participating or not participating). The measure also recorded types of IPS activities and reasons for non-participation. IPS teams completed the IPS participation measure at a rate of approximately 95% each month. Between 27 and 35% of enrollees assigned to a treatment condition participated in IPS services each month during the first 24 months of measurement. The most common activities were applying for jobs and attending job interviews. Most of those out of contact were not responding to outreach efforts (58-72%). Those in contact but not participating despite being unemployed were typically either uninterested in employment (20-44%) or difficult to reach (10-16%). As IPS expands to serve new populations, it will be important to document and understand the links between individual characteristics, variance in participation patterns, and employment outcomes. Subsequent analyses of SED data will investigate these relationships among enrollees.

Predictive Association of Low- and High-Fidelity Supported Employment Programs with Multiple Outcomes in a Real-World Setting: A Prospective Longitudinal Multi-site Study

PURPOSE

The individual placement and support (IPS) model of supported employment is a leading evidence-based practice in community mental health services. In Japan, individualized supported employment that is highly informed by the philosophy of the IPS model has been implemented. While there is a body of evidence demonstrating the association between program fidelity and the proportion of participants gaining competitive employment, the association between fidelity and a wider set of vocational and individual outcomes has received limited investigation. This study aimed to assess whether high-fidelity individualized supported employment programs were superior to low-fidelity programs in terms of vocational outcomes, preferred job acquisition, and patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs).

METHODS

A prospective longitudinal study with 24-month follow-up analyzed 16 individualized supported employment programs. The Japanese version of the individualized Supported Employment Fidelity scale (JiSEF) was used to assess the structural quality of supported employment programs (scores: low-fidelity program, ≤ 90; high-fidelity program, ≥ 91). Job acquisition, work tenure, work earnings, job preference matching (e.g., occupation type, salary, and illness disclosure), and PROMs such as the INSPIRE and WHO-Five Well-being index were compared between groups.

RESULTS

There were 75 and 127 participants in the low-fidelity group (k = 6) and high-fidelity group (k = 10), respectively. The high-fidelity group demonstrated better vocational outcomes than the low-fidelity group, i.e., higher competitive job acquisition (71.7% versus 38.7%, respectively, adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 3.6, p = 0.002), longer work tenure (adjusted mean difference = 140.8, p < 0.001), and better match for illness disclosure preference (92.6% versus 68.0%, respectively, aOR = 5.9, p = 0.003). However, we found no differences between groups in other preference matches or PROM outcomes.

CONCLUSION

High-fidelity individualized supported employment programs resulted in good vocational outcomes in a real-world setting. However, enhancing service quality to increase desired job acquisition and improve PROMs will be important in the future.

CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION

UMIN000025648.