Adequacy of care in a Portuguese culturally and linguistically targeted mental health care setting

Objective: To compare the adequacy of care of a Portuguese culturally and linguistically targeted mental health care setting with usual outpatient mental health care among Portuguese speaking patients in a safety net hospital in the US. Method: De-identified longitudinal data from an administrative database between 2005-2008 was used. Treatment group was defined as any patient with Portuguese as primary language of care and with any mental health visit at the Portuguese culturally appropriate mental health care setting. Adequate treatment was defined as receipt of at least eight outpatient psychotherapy visits, or at least four outpatient visits of which one was a psychopharmacological visit. Propensity score matching was used to balance patients in treatment and control groups on variables observed in the administrative data such as gender, marital status, age, mental health diagnostic and insurance. Results: The results are based on 525 patients in the treatment group and 803 patients in the control group. Treatment group and control group were tested using Chi-Square on the same demographic characteristics, with few significant differences. We present the predictive probability of adequate care after propensity score matching. Almost 60% of Portuguese speaking patients who had any contact with the Portuguese specific setting received adequate care compared to less than 40% who did not have any contact with this setting. Conclusion: The present study underlies the need of future research to understand the advantages of culturally appropriate mental health care setting among minority/immigrant patients.