Barriers and Facilitators in Providing Community Mental Health Care to Returning Veterans with a History of Traumatic Brain Injury and Co-occurring Mental Health Symptoms

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Web End = Community Ment Health J (2016) 52:158164

DOI 10.1007/s10597-015-9926-9

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Web End = Barriers and Facilitators in Providing Community Mental Health Care to Returning Veterans with a History of Traumatic Brain Injury and Co-occurring Mental Health Symptoms

Bridget B. Matarazzo1,2 Gina M. Signoracci1,3 Lisa A. Brenner1,4

Jennifer H. Olson-Madden1,3

Received: 24 July 2014 / Accepted: 11 August 2015 / Published online: 26 August 2015 Springer Science+Business Media New York (Outside USA) 2015

Abstract As Veterans from recent conicts return from deployments, increasing numbers are seeking care for physical (e.g., history of traumatic brain injury) and mental health (e.g., depression, anxiety) symptoms. Data suggest that only about half of recent Veterans are seeking care within the Veterans Health Administration. As such, providers within the community are likely to require additional training to meet the unique needs of these Veterans and their families. Towards this end, meetings were held with administrators and clinicians at Colorado Community Mental Health Centers (CMHCs) to identify current barriers and facilitators, as they relate to working with Veterans with a history of TBI and co-occurring mental health conditions. On-whole, CMHC employees had limited experience with providing care to the cohort of interest. Additional training will assist with increasing capacity and a web-based toolkit was developed to

facilitate the transfer of knowledge (http://www.mirecc.va.gov/visn19/tbi_toolkit

Web End =www.mirecc.va.gov/ http://www.mirecc.va.gov/visn19/tbi_toolkit

Web End =visn19/tbi_toolkit ).

Keywords Traumatic brain injury Mental health

Veterans Providers

Introduction

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a signicant public health problem in the United States (US) with 1.7 million people sustaining a TBI each year (Faul et al. 2010). Data collected from emergency departments in Colorado show that annually 4600 individuals are hospitalized and over 1000 die following TBI (Johnson et al. 2010). Post-injury, mental health symptoms (e.g., depression, anxiety) are frequently reported among civilians (Hart et al. 2011; Bryant et al. 2010). As such it is expected that survivors of injury who achieve some level of community integration will require mental health care. TBI also impacts the lives of those who served in the military. In...