Brief Intervention to Increase COVID-19 Knowledge in People With Serious Mental Illness

The proposed study will be the first to compare two commonly used but substantially different, evidence-based self-management interventions. Integrated Illness Management and Recovery (I-IMR), is an individually-tailored, 16-session, integrated program combining both physical and mental health self-management specifically developed for people with SMI. In contrast, the Stanford Chronic Disease Self-Management Program (CDSMP) is a group-based, 6-session, chronic disease self-management program largely focused on physical health self-management alone. I-IMR is delivered by community mental health providers or by community outreach workers, while CDSMP is co-delivered by two peers or by a health professional and a peer. Both programs have been widely recommended, disseminated, and used. The proposed parent study will randomize people with serious mental illness to I-IMR (n=300) and CDSMP (n=300).

The COVID-related Enhancement will involve enrolling 150 participants from the parent project to an evaluation of an additional I-IMR module compared to usual care during the pandemic. The I-IMR module will be delivered by trained interventionists in 3 calls over 3 weeks to n=75 I-IMR participants. The I-IMR participants and CDSMP participants will continue to receive Usual Care, consisting of generic support calls from clinicians at the study sites. Baseline, and 6, 9, and 12 week assessments will evaluate the effectiveness of the COVID-19 module that will be added to I-IMR.