Browsing by Author "Sullivan, W. Patrick"

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    Chronic Care, Integrated Care & Mental Health: Moving the Needle Now
    (Taylor & Francis, 2017) Sullivan, W. Patrick; Wahler, Elizabeth A.; School of Social Work
    Healthcare reform is currently a hot topic in the United States, and the Chronic Care Model has frequently been cited as the foundation of recent attempts to integrate mental health and physical health care. However, challenges exist to fully integrated care that have delayed adequately meeting the multiple needs of mental health service recipients. This article highlights multiple changes that can be incorporated into mental health care now, derived from the Chronic Care Model, to better meet clients’ physical and mental health needs. These changes include focusing on population-level data and incorporating technology and multidisciplinary teams in treatment and prevention efforts.
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    Role of Social Support and Ego Network Characteristics on Quality of Life: Implications for Persons Involved with Mental Health Courts
    (2021) Kondrat, David C.; Sullivan, W. Patrick; Canada, Kelli E.; Jaggers, Jeremiah W.; School of Social Work
    Mental health courts offer alternatives to incarceration for persons with severe mental illness who are involved in the criminal justice system. These courts have the dual function of ensuring treatment for persons involved in the court as well as ensuring the safety of the public. Persons with severe mental illness who are involved in mental health courts rely on others for support, such as family members. Others may buttress the participant from engaging in criminal activities and provide for needs of the participant. The supportiveness as well as the composition of one’s network members may play a role in the success of mental health court participants, such as successfully completing the mental health court program and avoiding incarceration. Little research has explored how social support impacts mental health court participants. We explored how the composition and sense of support of network members were associated with mental health court participants’ quality of life. We regressed quality of life on social support and network characteristics of 80 participants in two mental health courts. Findings suggest that perceived support is positively associated with quality of life, and the proportion of family in one’s network was negatively related to quality of life. Findings suggest that persons involved in mental health courts need supportive others in their social networks in addition to family. More research is needed to explore the reasons having a higher proportion of family members in one’s network is associated with lower quality of life. Practitioners need to pay attention to and leverage mental health court participants’ social networks to help improve their quality of life.
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    Taking a Timeout to Ensure Well-being: Social Work Involvement in College Sports
    (2015-04-01) Moore, Matthew A.; Sullivan, W. Patrick; Pike, Cathy; Kim, Hea-Won; Urtel, Mark
    Background: Participation in college athletics comes with inherent risks. Many of these risks relate to the psychosocial safety and well-being of college athletes. These risks include depression, suicide, alcohol abuse, substance abuse, and the development of an eating disorder. This study specifically examined the current state of psychosocial needs amongst college athletes, the availability of services that address psychosocial needs, the comfort level college athletes have with seeking services, and the identification of barriers that influence whether or not a college athlete seeks necessary help. Methods: This study used a web-based survey to gather information from a proportionate stratified random sample of both college athletic directors (N = 132) and college athletes (N = 349) across all NCAA division levels. Descriptive statistics, parametric tests, and multivariate tests were used to analyze the research questions. This study used NCAA division level and the profile of a college athlete’s sport as independent variables. The researcher created composite scores for athletic, academic, and psychosocial services to serve as dependent variables. The researcher also created a composite score for perceived barriers. Results: There were multiple significant findings for this research study. One key finding was that Division I and Division II college athletes had significantly higher psychosocial needs than Division III college athletes. Another key finding was that Division I college athletes experienced significantly lower levels of comfort in seeking psychosocial services than Division II and Division III college athletes. Furthermore, Division I college athletes reported significantly higher levels of barriers to seeking necessary services than Division II and Division III college athletes. Implications: These significant findings point clearly to the fact that more must be done to ensure the psychosocial safety and well-being of college athletes. This includes athletic departments more clearly understanding the needs of their college athletes, having services more readily available, finding ways to promote a college athlete’s disclosure of a psychosocial risk, and working to address current barriers that prevent college athletes from seeking help. One idea for improving the current state of services explored in this research is the interprofessional collaboration of social workers with college athletic departments.