Journal of general internal medicine
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Cross-sectional studies have found that health-related quality of life and mental health are worse among food-insecure compared with food-secure individuals. However, how these outcomes change as food insecurity changes is unclear. ⋯ Improvement in food insecurity was associated with improvement in several patient-reported outcomes. Further work should investigate whether similar changes are seen in food insecurity interventions, and the most useful scales for assessing changes in health-related quality of life and mental health in food insecurity interventions.
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Patient-perpetrated sexual harassment toward staff and patients is prevalent in Veterans Affairs and other healthcare settings. However, many healthcare facilities do not have adequate systems for reporting patient-perpetrated harassment, and there is limited evidence to guide administrators in developing them. ⋯ This qualitative study generated initial recommendations to guide healthcare administrators and policy makers in assessing, developing, and improving systems for reporting patient-perpetrated sexual harassment toward staff and other patients. Results indicate that proactive, careful design and ongoing evaluation are essential for ensuring that reporting systems have their intended effects and mitigating the risks of inadequate systems. Additional research is needed to evaluate strategies that effectively address patient-perpetrated harassment while balancing patients' clinical needs.
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The first surge of the COVID-19 pandemic entirely altered healthcare delivery. Whether this also altered the receipt of high- and low-value care is unknown. ⋯ The first COVID-19 surge was associated with receipt of less low-value care and substantially less high-value care for most measures, with the notable exception of increases in low-value opioid use.
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Pharmacotherapies remain a central focus of successful tobacco control, but uptake remains very low. ⋯ Medication sampling, an easily implementable, scalable and low-cost intervention to encourage smoking cessation, is cost saving and improves quality of life.
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Depression is often untreated or undertreated, particularly among underrepresented groups, such as racial and ethnic minorities, and individuals of lower socioeconomic status. Electronic health information exchange (HIE) is a recommended practice to improve care coordination and encourage patient engagement in services, but it remains underutilized in depression care. Understanding factors affecting acceptance and adoption of this technology among underrepresented patient populations is needed to increase dissemination of HIE within mental health treatment. ⋯ Respondents desire greater transparency in their depression care. While HIE was perceived to improve the overall quality of depression care, stigma associated with mental illness undermined more robust adoption of this technology among underserved populations.