Treatment Outcome of an Outpatient Treatment Program for Dually-Diagnosed Veterans: The Cincinnati Veterans Affairs Medical Center

Abstract

The Dual Diagnosis Clinic at the Cincinnati VA Medical Center is an integrated treatment program for veterans who have an Axis I psychiatric illness in addition to a substance dependence problem. With a high staff-to-patient ratio and an individualized approach, the DOC treats many dual diagnosis patients effectively. To demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach. an outcome study was conducted looking at the psychiatric emergency room visits, hospitalization rates, and the average length of stay for 557 DOC patients. Patients were divided into two groups: those who completed the assessment period, and those who did not. Equal periods of time before and after this assessment period were studied. Those who completed were more likely to have had fewer psychiatric emergency room visits (p<0.000001) after the assessment period than before when compared to dropouts. The engaged group had the same or more hospital admissions after the assessment period than before, while the dropout group had fewer. This suggests that there is a significant disorder of engagement for the dual diagnosis populations, and that the first impact of successful treatment is engagement.

Keywords:

• comorbidity
• crisis intervention
• dual diagnosis
• outcome