Cathy Donald Sherbourne

OBJECTIVES: To determine, in a population of predominantly Latino children with asthma 6 to 18 years old, whether parent and child reports of asthma symptoms with exercise differ and to evaluate the validity of child and parent reports of symptoms.

DESIGN: Data obtained from child and parent interviews; pulmonary function tests (forced vital capacity, forced expiratory volume in 1 second, forced expiratory flow25-75, peak expiratory flow), and observation of symptoms after ...

BACKGROUND: Depression contributes to disability and there are ethnic/racial disparities in access and outcomes of care. Quality improvement (QI) programs for depression in primary care improve outcomes relative to usual care, but health, social and other community-based service sectors also support clients in under-resourced communities. Little is known about effects on client outcomes of strategies to implement depression QI across diverse sectors.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the ...

OBJECTIVE: Recent policy has focused on documenting and reducing ethnic disparities in availability and quality of health care. The authors examined differences by ethnic status in unmet need for alcoholism, drug abuse, and mental health treatment.

METHOD: Data were from a follow-up survey of adult respondents to a 1996-1997 national survey. Non-Hispanic whites, African Americans, and Hispanics were compared in access to alcoholism and drug abuse treatment and mental health care (primary ...

CONTEXT: Care of patients with depression in managed primary care settings often fails to meet guideline standards, but the long-term impact of quality improvement (QI) programs for depression care in such settings is unknown.

OBJECTIVE: To determine if QI programs in managed care practices for depressed primary care patients improve quality of care, health outcomes, and employment.

DESIGN: Randomized controlled trial initiated from June 1996 to March 1997.

SETTING: Forty-six primary ...

PURPOSE: To measure health-related quality of life among adult patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease; to compare the health-related quality of life of adults with HIV with that of the general population and with patients with other chronic conditions; and to determine the associations of demographic variables and disease severity with health-related quality of life.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS: We studied 2,864 HIV-infected adults participating in the HIV Cost and Services ...

BACKGROUND: Panic disorder is a prevalent, often disabling condition among patients in the primary care setting. Although numerous studies have assessed the effectiveness of treatments for depression in primary care, few such studies have been conducted for panic disorder.

OBJECTIVE: To implement and test the effectiveness of a combined pharmacotherapy and cognitive-behavioral intervention for panic disorder tailored to the primary care setting.

DESIGN: Randomized, controlled study ...

CONTEXT: Improving the quality of mental health care requires moving clinical interventions from controlled research settings into real-world practice settings. Although such advances have been made for depression, little work has been performed for anxiety disorders.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether a flexible treatment-delivery model for multiple primary care anxiety disorders (panic, generalized anxiety, social anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorders) would be better than usual ...

BACKGROUND: Health utility is the recommended outcome metric for medical cost-effectiveness studies. We compared health utility and quality of life for primary care patients with depression or chronic medical conditions.

METHODS: Respondents were outpatients (N = 17 558) of primary care clinicians (N = 181) in 7 managed care organizations. Utility was assessed by time tradeoff, or the years of life that patients would exchange for perfect health, and standard gamble, or the required ...

Pain, anxiety, and depression are commonly seen in primary care patients and there is considerable evidence that these experiences are related. This study examined associations between symptoms of pain and symptoms and diagnoses of anxiety and depression in primary care patients. Results indicate that primary care patients who endorse symptoms of muscle pain, headache, or stomach pain are approximately 2.5-10 times more likely to screen positively for panic disorder, generalized anxiety ...

OBJECTIVE: Little is known about the impact of comorbid psychiatric symptoms in persons with HIV. This study estimates the burden on health-related quality of life associated with comorbid psychiatric conditions in a nationally representative sample of persons with HIV.

METHOD: The authors conducted a multistage sampling of urban and rural areas to produce a national probability sample of persons with HIV receiving medical care in the contiguous United States (N=2,864). Subjects were ...

OBJECTIVE: Ethnic minority patients often receive poorer quality care and have worse outcomes than white patients, yet practice-based approaches to reduce such disparities have not been identified. We determined whether practice-initiated quality improvement (QI) interventions for depressed primary care patients improve care across ethnic groups and reduce outcome disparities.

STUDY SETTING: The sample consists of 46 primary care practices in 6 U.S. managed care organizations; 181 ...

BACKGROUND: The Overall Anxiety Severity and Impairment Scale (OASIS) is a 5-item self-report measure that can be used to assess severity and impairment associated with any anxiety disorder or multiple anxiety disorders. A prior investigation with a nonclinical sample supported the reliability and validity of the OASIS; however, to date it has not been validated for use in clinical samples.

METHODS: The present study assessed the psychometric properties of the OASIS in a large sample ...