Health Topics

• Data Development
• Health Care Reform
• Health Information Technology
• Medicaid and CHIP
• Medicare
• Mental Health and Substance Abuse
• Payment Policies and Costs
• Public and Population Health
• Quality and Health System Functioning
• State Health Policy

Mental Health Training for Medical Assistants in Pediatric Primary Care

Mental health is a vital component of overall well-being, but many people—especially racial and ethnic minorities—do not receive adequate mental health services. Primary care is an optimal setting to provide mental health services, but primary care physicians often fail to identify and treat mental health problems due to limited time, resources, and barriers related to language and culture.

In response to this problem, researchers from Mathematica and Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health piloted a mental health communication skills training for paraprofessional medical assistants at the Mary’s Center for Maternal & Child Care, a federally qualified health center, located in Washington, DC, that primarily serves low-income immigrant Latina women and their children. The training was designed to help medical assistants:

• Talk to mothers and children about their mental health
• Elicit mental health concerns
• Set the agenda for the visit
• Relay information about mental health to the physician
• Engage families in mental health treatment

Mathematica provided input on the training and conducted a pre-post evaluation. The evaluation included collecting data from three cohorts of families recruited from the Mary’s Center to examine changes in families’ perceptions of care, discussion of mental health problems, identification of mental health problems, and engagement in treatment. The evaluation team videotaped standardized patient interviews with medical assistants to measure their uptake of skills and interactions with patients, and conducted focus groups with physicians, medical assistants, nurses, and administrators to examine their perceptions of the training and the impact of the training on the clinic. We also conducted focus groups with physicians, medical assistants, nurses, and administrators to examine their perceptions of the training and impact of the training on the clinic. The findings suggested that medical assistants were able to master the skills and improve their communication with families, making families more comfortable discussing mental health concerns. 

Publications

"Mental Health Communications Skills Training for Paraprofessional Medical Assistants in Pediatric Primary Care," Journal of Behavioral Health Services & Research (forthcoming)
"Receiving Advice About Child Mental Health From a Primary Care Provider: African American and Hispanic Parent Attitudes" (November 2007)