The impact of collaborative care on perceptions of treatment across racial and ethnic groups

Introduction This study examined the impact of the Collaborative Care Model (CoCM) on patients' subjective perceptions of clinician communication, treatment timeliness, and overall treatment quality, with a particular focus on whether these effects differ across racial and ethnic groups. Methods 797 adult participants with opioid use disorder (OUD) co-occurring with major depression and/or PTSD were recruited for the study from 18 rural and urban primary care clinics in New Mexico and California. Following enrollment, patients were randomized to either CoCM or enhanced usual care (EUC). Using linear models, we examined the relationship between treatment condition and patient perceptions of clinician communication, treatment timeliness, and overall treatment quality among a subset of 503 patients with follow-up measures at 6-months. We also examined whether this relationship was moderated by race and ethnicity. Results We found no evidence for an effect of CoCM compared to EUC on patients' perceptions of clinician communication, treatment timeliness, or overall treatment quality, and no evidence of moderation by patient race or ethnicity. Conclusion The present results conflict with prior literature suggesting that collaborative care improves patient perceptions of clinical experiences across diverse patient samples. These conflicting findings highlight the need for localized research that considers specific patient populations and social contexts when examining the impacts of collaborative care on subjective patient perceptions.