Abriendo Caminos: Engaging Latinos

Abriendo Caminos: Engaging Latino Communities Through Culturally Responsive Peer Delivered Motivational Interviewing

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if a culturally responsive peer-delivered motivational interviewing intervention can enhance mental health treatment engagement in Latinos with serious mental illness. The main questions it aims to answer are:

• How feasible is it to recruit 30 Latinos with serious mental illness into a 6 week treatment engagement intervention?
• How acceptable is the intervention to Latinos with serious mental illness?

Participants will:

• Receive six sixty-minute sessions
• Complete weekly measures, along with pre-, post-, 30-day, and 60-day post-intervention assessments

Despite the availability of effective mental health treatment, approximately 47% of Latino adults with trauma and serious mental illness (SMI) are not engaged in treatment. The main goal of this current study is to conduct a pilot study to establish the feasibility and acceptability of implementing a culturally responsive motivational interviewing engagement intervention and to ascertain preliminary evidence of the engagement of hypothesized target mechanisms that may mediate enhanced engagement in mental health treatment. The adapted intervention will be implemented by Latino peers with a single cohort (N=30) of Latinos with SMI and not in treatment. Each peer will carry a caseload of 5-6 participants. All participants who meet the inclusion criteria and are interested in participating will complete pre-intervention (baseline), end-of-six-week-intervention, 30-day, and 60-day follow-ups to determine whether there is an increase in treatment engagement, significant changes in measures, and engagement of target mechanisms. Mental health treatment engagement will be measured in multiple ways: 1) as the binary distinction between those who self-report initiation /re-initiation of formal mental health treatment (i.e., outpatient mental health treatment, psychotherapy, medication) within 60 days of the final adapted session 2) and additional indicators of engagement as determined by (e.g., completion of homework, implementation of skills, number of sessions attended). The intervention will approximate the following schedule: session 1 (psychoeducation on SMI and research participation in the current study), session 2 (exploration of strengths and values), session 3 (identification of areas of growth, session 4 (demystifying mental health myths), session 5 (planning for success), and session 6 (planning for growth). The focus is on the change processes-basic motivational interviewing components: awareness of ambivalence about mental health and about change; pros and cons of changing and staying the same; exploration of values and strengths; exploration of possible future; importance and confidence in engaging in treatment; and desire to plan for change.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Meet criteria for serious mental illness
• Not in treatment
• 18 years of age or older
• Reside in CT
• Self-identify as Latino
• Speak English and/or Spanish
• History of trauma
• Have not received any treatment in the past 30 days
• Willing and able to be contacted for follow-up

Exclusion Criteria:

• Individuals in formal mental health treatment in the past 30 days
• Have a life-threatening or unstable medical, surgical, or psychiatric condition
• Inability to provide > 1 form of contact information
• Anticipate being unable to return for a follow-up assessment
• Reported active risk of suicide or homicide
• Fail capacity to consent
• Cognitively impaired
• Currently in jail or other overnight facilities as required by courts or law