Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Date

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Psychology

Committee Chair

Jeffrey Berman

Committee Member

Andrew Olney

Committee Member

Joah Williams

Committee Member

Michael Rudd

Abstract

Collaboration between medical and behavioral health providers has been growing consistently through the years. Offering behavioral health services in a medical setting helps individuals who may not otherwise seek mental health care. Much of the available literature focuses on patient characteristics in referral patterns; however, current evidence does not provide much guidance for medical providers to improve their collaboration with behavioral health providers. The present study assessed referral patterns of medical providers serving patients with different presenting problems and with patients who have received prior prescriptions of psychotropic medications. Medical providers were randomly assigned to view four 1-min videos of each level of both conditions and then reported their intention to provide a behavioral health referral. Analyses first investigated how referral rates differed depending on provider training details, demographic variables, and clinic structure information. After this, analyses investigated differences in referral rates depending on patient presenting problem and their psychotropic medication status. The analyses revealed several provider factors that influence behavioral health referral rates, including their level of medical training, prior experiences with behavioral health providers, comfort independently treating psychological conditions, current reported referral rate, and whether they work in an environment with a behavioral health provider already integrated. When considering the presenting problem of the patient, medical providers were much more likely to refer a patient with depression than one with insomnia. In addition, medical providers had a higher referral rate for patients who are already prescribed a psychiatric medication, but only when seeing White males and BIPOC females. These findings provide several areas of additional training that both medical and behavioral health providers can benefit from, especially when considering the perceived quality of current collaboration.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest/Clarivate.

Notes

Open Access

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