Briefly discuss the impact of cost containment pressures in health care. Give examples of low-cost interventions used in clinical practice.
What will be an ideal response?
Cost containment pressures have prompted the development of interventions that are time limited, symptom focused, and offered on an outpatient basis, a format that is not always conducive to change through behavioral intervention. Moreover, this trend has been accompanied by a shift in treatment decision-making power from behavioral health care providers to policy makers. The pressures of cost containment push health psychology in the direction of research designed to keep people out of the health care system altogether. Some of the low-cost interventions used in clinical practice include self-help groups, peer counseling, self-management programs, and Internet interventions. Writing about intensely traumatic or stressful events is also a low-cost, easily implemented intervention that has demonstrated benefits. Another example is the stress reduction and pain amelioration benefits that can be achieved by simple, inexpensive techniques of relaxation and other cognitive-behavioral interventions.
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