Spotlight: May is Mental Health Month

May 2011

If you are a Veteran in crisis, please call 800-273-8255 and press 1.

Resources

Listen to VA HSR&D researcher John Fortney talk about improving access to mental health services for Veterans in rural areas.

• Read study abstracts about mental health care in the VA HSR&D literature database.
• Search citations of published literature in the VA HSR&D citations database.

Selected HSR&D Projects & Studies

• Visit the VA HSR&D Quality Enhancement Research Initiative's Mental Health (MH-QUERI) website.
• Read the MH-QUERI fact sheet describing their research projects and recent impacts on patient care.
• Download the VA HSR&D Evidence Synthesis Reports focusing on mental health concerns:
  • Non-Pharmacological Interventions for Behavioral Symptoms of Dementia
  • Brief Psychotherapy for Depression in Primary Care
  • Determining the Efficacy of Psychotherapy for Treatment Resistant Depression

Additional Resources

• For comprehensive resources for Veterans and their families, visit the VHA's Office of Mental Health website.
• Visit the Defense Center of Excellence for Psychological Health & Traumatic Brain Injury's website, or download their Guide to VA Mental Health Services for Veterans & Their Families.
• Visit the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Mental Health website.

 

The Veterans Health Administration is the country's largest provider of mental health services. Its more than 11,000 mental healthcare professionals focus on offering care that supports recovery and assists Veterans in living a meaningful life. Part of that mission includes research into the delivery, quality, and efficacy for mental health treatment, and the VA's Health Services Research & Development Service (VA HSR&D) plays a significant role in that effort.

VA HSR&D investigators conduct studies examining mental health-related issues that affect all Veterans—from those who are aging to those serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. Studies address a wide range of conditions and concerns, including depression, PTSD, substance use disorders, the co-occurrence of mental illness and physical disorders (e.g., PTSD and traumatic brain injury), as well as improving access to care, particularly for Veterans living in rural areas.

In addition to a broad spectrum of mental health research, VA/HSR&D also funds the Mental Health Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (MH-QUERI), whose mission is to improve quality of care, outcomes, and health-related quality of life for Veterans with depression, schizophrenia, and other mental health conditions. MH-QUERI has established strong partnerships, working closely with VA's Office of Mental Health Services program leaders and other stakeholders to develop strategies to implement evidence-based practices for Veterans with serious mental illness. For example, after developing a collaborative care model for the treatment of depression, MH-QUERI worked with several VA networks to implement and test the TIDES (Translating Initiatives for Depression into Effective Solutions) intervention, which showed that many Veterans with depression can be effectively treated in a primary care setting. MH-QUERI also is using the TIDES model to improve depression care in HIV clinics.