Mental Health Quality Improvement Project for Assertive Community Treatment (ACT)

Dramatically high rates of mortality related to chronic health conditions among individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) have contributed to an increasing need for interventions to address this problem. Integrated Illness Management and Recovery (I-IMR) is an intervention that incorporates illness self-management strategies for mental and physical illnesses. This study piloted I-IMR using practitioners on Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) teams to investigate feasibility of I-IMR on at ACT team and outcomes associated with improvements in the physical and mental health of individuals with SMI.

I-IMR was found to be both feasible and effective with participants. Participants enrolled in I-IMR experienced reduced psychiatric and medical hospitalizations at post treatment, and improved psychiatric outcomes and general self-efficacy. There was no significant improvement in self-efficacy related to disease management.