Critique of Article

Elwy , R , Ranganathan , G . and Eisen , S (2008 . Race-Ethnicity and Diagnosis as Predictors of Outpatient Service Use Among Treatment Initiators , Psychiatric Services , 59 (11 )

. 1285 - 1291

The purpose of this article was to understand and examine the number of outpatients for patients with substance abuse or mental health problem The data was collected from 12 outpatient mental health and substance abuse facilities in four U .S . Census Regions . The authors put forward three hypotheses that guided the way that they will approach the research problem . The first hypothesis was by keeping

all social-demographic information constant e .g , sex and age , the condition of non-Latino blacks and Latinos was worse when compared with non-Latino whites . The second hypothesis was that the patients with dual medical conditions e .g . mental problems and substance use diss could be expected to visit the hospital more times when compared with patients with single medical condition . Lastly , the third hypothesis was that the number of non-Latino blacks and Latinos would have visited the hospital less frequently when compared to non-Latino whites

The target population was outpatients in the United States . The study sample of 1 ,899 patients with mental health and substance abuse problems was obtained from 12 outpatient mental health or substance abuse treatment centers within a period of two months (May 2001 - June 2002 Out of this number , diagnoses for 1807 patients were obtained from the medical facilities . Patients who had substance and psychiatric problems were included in the study factoring the racial-ethnicity...