Money management is a neglected issue in maintaining persons with mental illness in the community. This randomized controlled trial (RCT) assessed whether a community-based representative payee program, i.e., money management of Social Security and/or VA benefits, coordinated with VA psychiatric care (CO-RP) could be more effective than customary treatment for veterans who had no representative payee.

Background:

Money management is a neglected issue in maintaining persons with mental illness in the community. This randomized controlled trial (RCT) assessed whether a community-based representative payee program, i.e., money management of Social Security and/or VA benefits, coordinated with VA psychiatric care (CO-RP) could be more effective than customary treatment for veterans who had no representative payee.

Objectives:

After 184 subjects were randomly assigned to CO-RP experimental group or customary care control group, hypotheses were that the CO-RP group would experience: 1) more frequent enrollment in the representative payee program, 2) improved residential status, 3) improved health-related quality of life, including less mental illness symptomatology, 4) less substance abuse, 5) improved money management.

Methods:

Six-month interviews were completed on 152 of 184 possible subjects (83%) and 12-month interviews were completed on 149 of 184 possible subjects (81%). The six and twelve-month outcomes were analyzed with analysis of covariance using data from the baseline pretest.

Status:

Completed.

• Conrad KJ, Lutz G, Matters MD, Donner L, Clark E, Lynch P. Randomized trial of psychiatric care with representative payeeship for persons with serious mental illness. Psychiatr Serv. 2006 Feb;57(2):197-204.
• Conrad KJ, Matters MD, Luchins DJ, Hanrahan P, Quasius DL, Lutz G. Development of a Money Mismanagement Measure and cross-validation due to suspected range restriction. J Appl Meas. 2006;7(2):206-24.
• Conrad KJ, Wright BD, McKnight P, McFall M, Fontana A, Rosenheck R. Comparing traditional and Rasch analyses of the Mississippi PTSD Scale: revealing limitations of reverse-scored items. J Appl Meas. 2004;5(1):15-30.

Inclusion Criteria:

Severe mental illness; Inability to manage money; VA patient

Exclusion Criteria: