Author(s)

Martha Okafor¹, Victor Ede^1*, Rosemary Kinuthia¹, Debbie Strotz², Cathryn Marchman³, Scott Weeks⁴, David Satcher¹

¹Satcher Health Leadership Institute, Division of Behavioral Health, Morehouse School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA.
²Rehabilitation and Recovery Services, Cobb and Douglas County Community Services Board, Austell, GA, USA.
³Advocacy and Compliance, Mercy Care, Atlanta, GA, USA.
⁴Cobb and Douglas County Community Services Board, Austell, GA, USA.

The purpose of this Integrated Care Practice Change and Quality Improvement (ICPCQI) initiative was to evaluate the impact of wellness and relaxation and group psycho-education on health out-comes in an integrated care setting. Individuals diagnosed with mental illness and a co-occurring chronic medical condition participated in the ICPCQI initiatives which were run by peer support and wellness experts in an integrated care setting over the one-year project implementation period. Evaluation of outcome measures revealed an overall decline of 8.3% (p < 0.0001) and 7.3% (p < 0.0001) in the average systolic and diastolic blood pressure respectively. There was a 12.3% (p = 0.02) reduction on the average PHQ-9 scores. GAD-7 (p = 0.9) scores had a mean reduction of 1.5%. These preliminary results suggest that the evidence-based ICPCQI initiatives positively impact health outcomes among individuals with mental illness and chronic medical conditions.

Integrated Care, Relaxation, Group Psycho-Education, Health Outcomes, Quality Improvement, Peer Specialist, Wellness, Primary Healthcare, Behavioral Health

Okafor, M. , Ede, V. , Kinuthia, R. , Strotz, D. , Marchman, C. , Weeks, S. and Satcher, D. (2014) Impact of Relaxation and Group Psycho-Education on Health Outcomes Using Integrated Care Models and Quality Improvement. Open Journal of Preventive Medicine, 4, 887-896. doi: 10.4236/ojpm.2014.412100.