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• Future Research Directions

Future Research Directions

This coming year, APIRE plans to leverage APF funding to advance the following priority  initiatives: 1) the National Study of Psychiatric Patients and Treatments; 2)development of an APIRE Center for Workforce Studies; and 3) National Depression Management Leadership Initiative Follow Up Studies. 

National Study of Psychiatric Patients and Treatments.  This study, last implemented by the PRN in 1999, has provided an invaluable resource to assess and document a range of important clinical, policy, and workforce-related issues in psychiatry.  As this study provides a clinically detailed national database on the characteristics and treatments provided to a large national sample of psychiatric patients, it has provided a powerful tool to characterize the treatment of psychiatric patients, resulting in over two hundred peer reviewed publications and other scientific communications.  It has been valuable in studying quality of care, access to care, and barriers to clinically indicated treatments, including financing and racial and ethnic disparities in access to care. 

APF resources will be used to lay the foundation for implementing the next Study of Psychiatric Patients and Treatments. This will provide more current data to help inform advocacy and other efforts to improve care for psychiatric patients.

APIRE Center for Workforce Studies.  To shape future workforce and graduate medical education (GME) policies that will directly impact psychiatrists and their patients, APIRE plans to develop a Center for Workforce and GME Studies (CWS). The CWS would consolidate the efforts of APIRE and the APA related to these issues, better utilizing available resources, facilitating regular collection and analysis of workforce data, and providing the infrastructure needed to secure external funding for these efforts. The CWS would provide data to inform policy and decisions regarding access to quality care from psychiatrists.

The National Depression Management Leadership Initiative Follow-Up Studies.  Two follow-up projects have been proposed: 1) examine the sustainability and spread of key elements of change introduced during the collaborative 12 months after the project conclusion; and 2) evaluate the concurrent validity of two different patient-rated assessments in clinical practice for depression -- the PHQ-9 and the Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology (QIDS-SR₁₆^).  Currently, there is no research on the equivalency of PHQ9 and QIDS-SR₁₆, nor on any psychometric differences in terms of reliability and validity. This study is particularly important as these two tools have gained widespread use in clinical studies and clinical practice. Grant proposals for submission to potential funders have been developed for these studies.