211 The Professional Counselor | Volume 13, Issue 3 Empirical Articles Our review resulted in 13 empirical studies using the following designs: three mixed-methods designs, three quasi-experimental designs, two cross-sectional surveys, two pre-post designs, three phenomenological studies, and one exploratory cross-case synthesis. The studies were completed in a variety of settings, such as university clinics, trauma centers, and hospitals. Participant profiles varied across studies, with nine representing CITs or practicing counselors, three representing clients, and one representing both. In addition to counselors, studies with client-level data included service providers and undergraduate students from social work, speech–language pathology, dental hygiene, nursing, and physical therapy programs. Articles that reported client-level data tested an intervention (e.g., motivational interviewing in an IC setting for a substance use disorder), compared an IC approach to treatment as usual (TAU) in silos, or explored relationships between health care indicators and client engagement in a setting applying an IC modality. Furthermore, three studies in this article used Heath et al.’s (2013) conceptualization of IC, which was the most common model cited. Most study outcomes were reported as positive benefits for IC. For CIT and counselor-level studies, six described a theme of increased ability and desirability to work with a collaborative approach on IC teams. Participants also commonly reported an increase in professional identity and self-efficacy. Participants in studies by Agaskar et al. (2021), Alvarez et al. (2014), and Lenz and Watson (2023) further demonstrated that working with underserved populations in IC settings increased their multicultural competence, specifically around areas of acceptance, advocacy, and awareness. A gap in IC awareness among service providers and organizational constraints were noted as potential barriers to IC care. Johnson et al. (2021) found interprofessional supervision as a potential barrier to remaining within a provider’s scope of practice, because a supervisor providing supervision to a supervisee from a different professional identity may not appropriately understand roles and responsibilities. Because of this, Johnson and colleagues noted implications for future research and graduate-level training in the classroom and field experience. All four of the studies completed with client-level data were quantitative, accounting for 2,378 client participants. Results of these studies suggested improvement in holistic client functioning (i.e., reduction in pathological symptoms and increase in preventative behaviors; Ulupinar et al., 2021), a decrease in crisis events (Schmit et al., 2018), and decrease in risky drinking behaviors for individuals receiving IC trauma care (Veach et al., 2018). The self-stigma of mental illness and of seeking help had an inverse relationship with mental health literacy among patients who received treatment in an IC setting (Crowe et al., 2017). These results are represented in Appendix B. Meta-Analyses and Systematic Reviews Three articles in this review were meta-analyses or systematic reviews. Specifically, two articles were meta-analyses and one was a systematic review. Participants within these studies included adults with substance use disorders, mental health professionals receiving training to practice within IC, and individuals receiving mental health care in traditional primary care settings. All three articles described benefits of IC. Additionally, the authors differed on the number of studies and participants included in their analyses. Fields et al. (2023) completed a review of 18 articles that studied training interventions for mental health professionals to work on IC teams and concluded that training in IC promotes aspects of interprofessional collaboration, professional identity development, and self-efficacy. Balkin et al. (2019) concluded no statistical significance between IC treatment and TAU to decrease frequency of substance use. Balkin et al. also remarked that their study, including 1,545 participants, did not reach statistical power and results should be considered preliminary. Lenz et al. (2018) reported a decrease in mental health symptoms with a greater effect when a larger treatment team and number of behavioral health sessions are increased, compared to TAU. Lenz and colleagues generated their results from 14,764 participants. Lastly, Fields et al. (2023) and Lenz et al. (2018) both used Heath et al.’s (2013) model of IC for conceptualization. For all three of these studies, additional research is needed to understand IC at the client or consumer level, as well as how different variables affect the treatment process. These results are represented in Appendix C.
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