Article2011

Australia's Better Access Initiative: An Evaluation

Jane Pirkis · Maria Ftanou · Michelle Kate Williamson · Anna Machlin · Matthew John Spittal · Bridget Bassilios +1 more

74 citations0/0 files storedAustralian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Mental Health Treatment and Access Psychiatric care and mental health services Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Australia's Better Access to Psychiatrists, Psychologists and General Practitioners through the Medicare Benefits Schedule (Better Access) initiative involves a series of Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) item numbers which offer a rebate for selected services delivered by eligible clinicians. There has been considerable debate about the appropriateness and effectiveness of Better Access, much of which has been based on limited evidence. The current paper contributes to this debate by presenting the findings of a study which profiled the clinical and treatment characteristics of Better Access patients and examined the outcomes of their care. METHOD: We approached a stratified random sample of providers who had billed for at least 100 occasions of service under the Better Access item numbers in 2008 (509 clinical psychologists, 640 registered psychologists, 1280 GPs) and invited them to participate. Those who agreed were asked to recruit 5-10 Better Access patients according to a specific protocol. We collected data that enabled us to profile providers, patients and sessions. We also collected pre- and post-treatment patient outcome data, using the Kessler-10 (K-10) and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21). RESULTS: In total, 883 patients were recruited into the study (289 by 41 clinical psychologists, 317 by 49 registered psychologists and 277 by 39 GPs). More than 90% of participating patients had diagnoses of depression and/or anxiety (compared with 13% of the general population). More than 80% were experiencing high or very high levels of psychological distress (compared with 10% of the general population). Around half of all participating patients had no previous history of mental health care. Patients experienced statistically significant improvements in average K-10 and DASS-21 scores from pre- to post-treatment. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that Better Access is playing an important part in meeting the community's previously unmet need for mental health care.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 74 citations exist upstream.

References

1995The structure of negative emotional states: Comparison of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) with the Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventories 2002Short screening scales to monitor population prevalences and trends in non-specific psychological distress 2011Kessler Psychological Distress Scale: Normative Data from the 2007 Australian National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing 2009Comorbidity in Australia: Findings of the 2007 National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing 2002Cognitive therapy of depression 2009Improving access to psychological therapies: Phase IV prospective cohort study

Cited by

2018The factor structure and predictive validity of the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) in children and adolescents 2016How OECD health systems define the range of good and services to be financed collectively 2015The ‘price signal’ for health care is loud and clear: A cross‐sectional study of self‐reported access to health care by disadvantaged Australians

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.