Integrating Solution Focused Interventions in Integrated Care

Integrated behavioral healthcare (IBH) emerged to address the high prevalence of psychosocial issues endemic to primary care settings coupled with primary care provider's discomfort in addressing psychosocial issues. IBH addresses the lack of psychosocial care in primary care settings by expanding the traditional healthcare team through the inclusion of a behavioral health provider (clinical social worker, licensed psychologist, etc.). The behavioral health provider utilizes evidenced based interventions to support the healthcare team with addressing a wide range of healthcare concerns. Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) provides a promising treatment approach within IBH settings due to the high productivity standards within primary care and the efficient, solution based style foundational to SFBT. In addition, SFBT is strengths based and emphasizes patient centered approaches which primary care aspires to achieve. Despite the natural fit, there is a paucity of research regarding SFBT within integrated care settings in general, and for specific disease states. The purpose of this study is to assess the efficacy of SFBT within an IBH setting in the treatment of depression while assessing for commensurate improvement with traditional healthcare markers such as A1C, blood pressure, pulse, and weight. In addition, scaling questions will be utilized to assess for increase in core SFBT constructs to include self-awareness of strengths, future hope, and increased ability to problem solve. A pre-posttest experimental design will assess the differences between those receiving SFBT and treatment as usual across symptoms of depression, SFBT core attributes, and health outcomes.