Honors Program
[Honors-in-Discipline (Choose below)], Honors in Psychology
Date of Award
12-2023
Thesis Professor(s)
Dr. Aubrey Dueweke
Thesis Professor Department
<--College of Arts and Sciences-->
Thesis Reader(s)
Dr. Kelly Moore
Abstract
Introduction: Individuals in rural areas tend to face unique barriers to accessing mental health care. One possible solution to make mental health services more accessible could be to integrate behavioral healthcare providers into primary care practices. However, the successful integration of behavioral health services into rural primary care is likely reliant on the knowledge, attitudes, and readiness of the primary care practice to initiate the process of integration. The current study aims to describe knowledge, attitudes, and readiness to adopt integrated behavioral health services among primary care providers in rural South-Central Appalachia and to examine how providers’ knowledge and attitudes are related to readiness. Method: Participants (n = 25) were primary care providers in rural South-Central Appalachia who completed several self-report questionnaires, including a measure of knowledge and attitudes about integrated behavioral health services created by the research team and the Readiness for Integrated Care Questionnaire – Short Form (RICQ-SF; Scott et al., 2017). Results: Participants demonstrated an average level of knowledge and fairly positive attitudes about integrated care. In addition, participants reported an average level of readiness to implement integrated care. Knowledge about integrated care was significantly positively correlated with readiness (r =.46, p = .022) in this sample, but attitudes were not. Discussion: The results of this study highlight the importance of providing training and technical assistance to primary care practices that are interested in implementing integrated behavioral health services. It is our hope that these findings will improve efforts to implement integrated care and improve mental healthcare access in our region.
Publisher
East Tennessee State University
Document Type
Honors Thesis - Open Access
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Rose, Baylee, "Knowledge, Attitudes, and Readiness for Integrated Behavioral Health Services Among Primary Care Providers in East Tennessee" (2023). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 815. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/815
Copyright
Copyright by the authors.