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Research Consultation

We Offer Consultation in adult education programs, implementation and demonstration projects, and research design/grant funding.

The PST network's aim is to link PST experts to professionals, health care organizations, and academic institutions to disseminate PST in clinical practice, to document PST's effects for various disorders, and to understand, at the cognitive neuroscience level, why PST is so effective in treating depressive disorders and related syndromes. Currently, network partners are collaborating on the following projects:

  • The application of PST as a mobile health app for smart phones and tablets;
  • The effectiveness and long-term sustainability of our PST training program in community mental health, medical and professional schools;
  •  The effectiveness of PST in multiple ethnic minority populations, age groups and in other countries (e.g.: China, Vietnam, Latin America);
  •  The impact that PST has on the cognitive control network, an important cognitive domain that cuts across mental illnesses and other diseases of the brain.

Network members offer an array of consultation and training services. These include:

Clinical trial research methods for behavioral interventions, not limited to:

  • Recruitment of underrepresented populations into research;
  • Randomized and field trial research design;
  • Health services research;
  • Implementation research;
  • Ideal outcome selection;
  • Use of novel assessment technologies in clinical research;
  • Mixed method design (qualitative plus quantitative methods);
  • Novel data analysis methods.

Implementation of PST and other evidence-based interventions into community services, including:

  • Community mental health and state funded initiatives (e.g: California's Mental Health Service Act projects);
  • National health plans;
  • Medical and nursing student, graduate and medical resident educational programs;
  • Nonmental health settings (e.g.: Meals on Wheels, help lines).

Many of our network members are leading experts in the mental health and research field. Our PST training program is evidence-based and includes experts in adult education and implementation, for instance Dr. Wendi Cross, director of psychology training, University of Rochester, Dr. Lowell Tong, interm chair UCSF department of psychiatry and Dr. Jurgen Unutzer, vice chair, University of Washington department of psychiatry on the use of simulated cases in training professionals and students in evidence-based practices.

Director: Research and Provider Training: Dr. Patricia A. Arean

I am always pleased to offer consultation on research design, grant writing and implementation of evidence based practices, particularly to students and junior faculty as they develop their academic and professional careers. I have over 25 years of research experience, which includes continuous research funding for my work through NIMH, SAMHSA, and several state and national foundations. I have served as a peer grant reviewer for NIMH since 1997, the majority of that time as a standing reviewer on three different study sections. I was the chair of the services research, special populations study section until February 2012 and recently have been reviewing for NIMHHD, and the NIH CTSAs. I am the director of the NIMH funded Clinical Services Research Training Program and am the director of new and junior faculty mentoring for my department. I had the honor to recently complete a book with my dear friend, Dr. Helena Kraemer, biostatistician extraordinaire, titled How to Conduct High Quality Psychotherapy Research, a practical, how-to book that should be useful to new and senior investigators as they design their research. The book will be published by Oxford early 2013.

I also enjoy working with federal, state, and county programs as they implement mental health care innovations. I take a flexible approach to training and consultation, getting to know the programs, their goals, and basically problem solving the implementation obstacles that all programs encounter when they engage in system changes. My population expertise is with adults, older adults, persons with disabilities or chronic illness, people with mild cognitive impairment, people living in low-income neighborhoods, and the Latino, African American and Chinese communities.