Am J Psychiatry 1992; 149:1219-1224
Copyright © 1992 by American Psychiatric Association
Mental health status and community adjustment after treatment in a residential treatment program for homeless veterans
C Leda and R Rosenheck
Northeast Program Evaluation Center, West Haven VA Medical Center, CT 06516.
OBJECTIVE: An uncontrolled outcome study was conducted to examine clinical
improvement and the relationship of psychiatric and substance abuse
problems, community adjustment, and housing status among homeless veterans
who participated in a multisite residential treatment program. METHOD: The
study was performed at three U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs medical
centers in Florida, Ohio, and California. Baseline, discharge, and 3-month
postdischarge follow-up data were collected for 255 veterans admitted to
the Domiciliary Care for Homeless Veterans Program. Multiple dimensions of
outcome were examined, including psychiatric symptoms, alcohol abuse, drug
abuse, social contacts, income, employment, and housing. RESULTS: Program
participation was found to be associated with improvement in all areas of
mental health and community adjustment. Improvement in psychiatric symptoms
was associated with superior housing outcomes and improvement in community
adjustment. When correlates of improvement in alcohol and drug abuse were
examined, only one of eight possible relationships was found to be
significant: improvement in alcohol problems was positively associated with
improvement in employment. CONCLUSIONS: Homeless mentally ill veterans
derive clear benefits from participation in a multidimensional residential
treatment program. Improvement in mental health problems, however, is
weakly linked to improvement in other areas, suggesting that treatment
programs may have to attend separately to multiple domains of life
adjustment.
