Health Care and Mental Health

RQP’s methods and specific health care curriculum help patients take greater ownership of their own health care and partner more effectively with their health care providers. Health educators, nurses, doctors, counselors and support staff can use the RQP educational strategy for:

• teaching patients how to generate and prioritize their questions
• encouraging reluctant and hesitant patients to ask their questions
• supporting patient efforts to participate more actively in their own health care
• Promoting more patient-provider shared decision-making.

RQP’s work with the Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research (CMMHR) offered a remarkable demonstration of the universal relevance of RQP’s methods. In a NIH-funded study, CMMHR tested the effectiveness of teaching RQP’s methods to patients to primarily Latino clients at a community mental health center. The results were striking.  Levels of patient activation and engagement were two and three times the rate of comparison patients. The results of this study are documented in the medical journal, Medical Care, March 2008. The potential of the RQP strategy has been identified for the field and has now received a second round of funding to expand to a national randomized study.