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The UAMS Psychiatric Research Institute: The Future of Mental Health Care in Arkansas The mental health crisis is overwhelming. Globally, 450 million people endure some sort of psychiatric illness; locally, only 50 percent of Arkansans with depression get any treatment and only 20 percent of those receive the appropriate care. There are many more heartbreaking statistics, but what is most upsetting is the effect of what an untreated mental illness does to a family. A parent who suffers from a disorder and does not seek treatment may negatively act out in front of a child or cease from parenting altogether. The effect this type of behavior has on a child can be devastating, not to mention passed down through generations.
UAMS Psychiatry continually seeks to improve overall mental health in Arkansas and the region through its education, research, clinical, and community service components. The Department has embarked on a capital campaign with the intention of building a comprehensive psychiatric center on the UAMS Campus. This new facility will allow the Department to more effectively address the needs of its constituents, making services accessible to thousands more Arkansans who currently have no access to mental health resources. The major beneficiaries of this center, to be known as the UAMS Psychiatric Research Institute (PRI), will be people across Arkansas. Although substance abuse is our society’s predominant cause of premature, preventable illness, disability, and death, and more than 20 percent of Americans are affected by at least one mental disorder that could benefit from treatment, many residents of Arkansas who need treatment do not get effective services. The department’s efforts to address these needs are limited because its current clinical psychiatric programs are relatively small in number of patients and type of treatment, and the lack of on-campus space severely restricts efforts to expand programs and make them more accessible. Clinical services cannot fully access expertise available in the dynamic educational and research components because programs are spread across 13 relatively inaccessible, off-campus sites. Only 5% of the approximately 400 faculty and staff members in the department are housed at UAMS. However, the Department’s clinical services, which include excellent treatment for children and adolescents, have helped change mental health treatment in Arkansas, with approximately 1,000 patients cared for daily. The department’s dynamic research programs include the Centers for Mental Healthcare Research, which is one of the nation’s dominant mental health services research group, one of the major psychiatric research/training centers in the southern US, and the largest research group at UAMS. More than 90 percent of Arkansas psychiatrists have received their training through the department, which also offers critically-needed community-based services, pharmaceutical evaluations, program development, and educational resources to the citizens of Arkansas. The capital campaign to raise funds for the UAMS Psychiatric Research Institute is based on the recommendations of two consulting agencies and a strong Steering Committee of local community leaders. The Wilcox Group of Little Rock, after conducting a comprehensive feasibility study, found that lack of space is the department’s key limitation to integration and growth. Based on this study, plans were made for consolidation of staff and programs in a free-standing facility. The UAMS Psychiatric Research Institute will allow UAMS Psychiatry to effectively address the needs of those with mental illness or substance abuse problems by significantly expanding the scope and number of the department’s programs. Too, providing space where the department’s teachers, students, researchers, and other professionals can benefit from the synergy that comes from a shared environment will enhance clinical and other services. By combining many of our sites, the Department will be able to offer more services to more patients; add programs for schizophrenia and depressive disorders, psychotherapy, behavioral change, head injury and the study and treatment of addictive and eating disorders; have room for clinical intervention research, including pharmaceutical trials, psychotherapy research, and development of new treatments for disorders being studied by our faculty; and reduce costs by cutting down on duplication at multiple sites. UAMS Psychiatry will make its facilities available for use by community organizations, including Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and Arkansas affiliates of the National Association for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) and the National Depressive and Manic-Depressive Association (NDMDA). This facility will also make it possible to expand the department’s existing, nationally renowned research programs, thus enhancing its ability to promptly translate the latest research developments into improved treatments for Arkansans. The UAMS Psychiatric Research Institute will make it possible to consolidate programs in a free-standing, five-story building adjoining the new University Hospital. This new facility will contain a UAMS Psychiatry Center with more services for late adolescents, adults, and the elderly and space to add specialty treatment programs as funds become available (i.e., for the study and treatment of addictive and eating disorders, behavioral change, and schizophrenia and depressive disorders). An Educational Programs Suite will centralize the department’s excellent student, residency, and fellowship programs so academic professionals can assist patients and their families, course leaders will all be on campus and accessible, and joint programs can be better coordinated. A Center for Clinical Intervention Research will provide much-needed facilities for important future research such as involvement with pharmaceutical trials, psychotherapy research, and development of new treatments. Other facilities, such as the auditorium and library, will support all programs and help develop and expand community outreach by bringing organizations and people to the new facility. For more information about giving to UAMS Psychiatry, contact: Renie Rule UAMS Department of Psychiatry |
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