Health Evaluation and Linkage to Primary Care

Description

The HELP study was a clinical trial for adult inpatients recruited from a detoxification unit. Patients with no primary care physician were randomized to receive a multidisciplinary assessment and a brief motivational intervention or usual care, with the goal of linking them to primary medical care.

Usage

data(HELPrct)

Format

Data frame with 453 observations on the following variables.

age

subject age at baseline (in years)

anysub

use of any substance post-detox: a factor with levels no yes

cesd

Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression measure at baseline (high scores indicate more depressive symptoms)

d1

lifetime number of hospitalizations for medical problems (measured at baseline)

hospitalizations

lifetime number of hospitalizations for medical problems (measured at baseline)

daysanysub

time (in days) to first use of any substance post-detox

dayslink

time (in days) to linkage to primary care

drugrisk

Risk Assessment Battery drug risk scale at baseline

e2b

number of times in past 6 months entered a detox program (measured at baseline)

female

0 for male, 1 for female

sex

a factor with levels male female

g1b

experienced serious thoughts of suicide in last 30 days (measured at baseline): a factor with levels no yes

homeless

housing status: a factor with levels housed homeless

i1

average number of drinks (standard units) consumed per day, in the past 30 days (measured at baseline)

i2

maximum number of drinks (standard units) consumed per day, in the past 30 days (measured at baseline)

id

subject identifier

indtot

Inventory of Drug Use Consequences (InDUC) total score (measured at baseline)

linkstatus

post-detox linkage to primary care (0 = no, 1 = yes)

link

post-detox linkage to primary care: no yes

mcs

SF-36 Mental Component Score (measured at baseline, lower scores indicate worse status)

pcs

SF-36 Physical Component Score (measured at baseline, lower scores indicate worse status)

pss_fr

perceived social support by friends (measured at baseline, higher scores indicate more support)

racegrp

race/ethnicity: levels black hispanic other white

satreat

any BSAS substance abuse treatment at baseline: no yes

sexrisk

Risk Assessment Battery sex risk score (measured at baseline)

substance

primary substance of abuse: alcohol cocaine heroin

treat

randomized to HELP clinic: no yes

Details

Eligible subjects were adults, who spoke Spanish or English, reported alcohol, heroin or cocaine as their first or second drug of choice, resided in proximity to the primary care clinic to which they would be referred or were homeless. Patients with established primary care relationships they planned to continue, significant dementia, specific plans to leave the Boston area that would prevent research participation, failure to provide contact information for tracking purposes, or pregnancy were excluded.

Subjects were interviewed at baseline during their detoxification stay and follow-up interviews were undertaken every 6 months for 2 years. A variety of continuous, count, discrete, and survival time predictors and outcomes were collected at each of these five occasions.

This data set is a subset of the HELPmiss data set restricted to the 453 subjects who were fully observed on the age, cesd, d1, female, sex, g1b, homeless, i1, i2, indtot, mcs, pcs, pss_fr, racegrp, satreat, substance, treat, and sexrisk variables. (There is some missingness in the other variables.) HELPmiss contains 17 additional subjects with partially observed data on some of these baseline variables. This is also a subset of the HELPfull data which includes 5 timepoints and many additional variables.

Note

The \code{HELPrct} data set was originally named \code{HELP} but has
been renamed to avoid confusion with the \code{help} function.

Source

https://nhorton.people.amherst.edu/help/

References

Samet JH, Larson MJ, Horton NJ, Doyle K, Winter M, and Saitz R. Linking alcohol and drug-dependent adults to primary medical care: A randomized controlled trial of a multi-disciplinary health intervention in a detoxification unit. Addiction, 2003; 98(4):509-516.

See Also

HELPmiss, and HELPfull.

Examples

data(HELPrct)