Evaluating the Single-Session Consultation Service at the Krasner Psychological Center and Putnam

Study Summary

Stony Brook University is home to several mental health clinics, that all work towards achieving overall wellness of their clients. The goals of Stony Brook University are met with the help of associated clinics that strive to improve wellness of individuals and their communities by helping to treat both mental and physical health impairments. Two of these many clinics are the Krasner Psychological Center (KPC), and the Mind Body Clinical Research Center (MBCRC).. At present, the KPC and MBCRC face a challenge common to virtually all mental health clinics across the United States: the demand for psychological services far outpaces the number of available providers. Indeed, in the US, approximately 70% of those in need of mental health services do not receive them. As such, wait-lists at mental health clinics like the KPC and MBCRC are increasingly long, and longer wait-times for psychotherapy have predicted worse clinical outcomes once treatment is accessed (i.e., a 'nocebo' effect). Thus, there is a pressing need for effective, sustainable service delivery models that may facilitate more rapid access to care-for instance, providing a low-intensity service rapidly after an individual decides to seek treatment, capitalizing on client motivation. This sort of rapidly-provided, low-intensity service might have the added benefit of reducing overall waitlist lengths--e.g., if some subset of clients find the low-intensity service to be sufficient, a single session might be sufficient (in some cases) to spur positive behavioral and emotional change. One solution to this problem is the integration of single-session services into mental health clinics. Extensive research suggests that both youths and adults can benefit from just one session of goal-directed counseling, and these clinical benefits have been observed for a wide array of problems-including anxiety, depression, self-harm, and interpersonal conflicts. This research suggests the possibility that, for some subset

Primary Outcome

The State Hope Scale is a 6 item self-report measure of agentic, goal-directed thinking. Respondents rate 6 items on a Likert scale from 1 (definitely false) to 8 (definitely true). Higher mean scores reflect a greater sense of personal agency (i.e., personal capacity to pursue and sense of having attained goals). Scores range from 1-8.

Interventions

• BEHAVIORAL Single-Session Consultation