Screening Patients with Severe Mental Illness for Metabolic Syndrome: A Quality Improvement Project by a Mobile Medication Nursing Program

Background: Persons with serious mental illnesses (SMI) die 25 years younger than the general population due to risks associated with smoking, excess weight, poor diet and sedentary life styles. Screening for metabolic syndrome in SMI patients and communicating results can reduce this risk.

Methods and Findings: This quality improvement initiative provided training to measure components of metabolic syndrome, and to document and communicate the results to physicians. All 62 clients were screened during a 3-month period; 20 (32.3%) met full criteria, 36 individuals met at least one or two individual criteria of metabolic syndrome; 6 did not. These visits were done inhome, thus blood glucose and lipid values were not available, but however, those receiving treatments for diabetes mellitus; dyslipidemia; taking fish oil or niacin for low HDL cholesterol were enumerated. Conclusions: Results of the screening of SMI patients for metabolic syndrome were successfully communicated to physicians to initiate appropriate interventions.

Author(s):

Cynthia Eldredge RN, Noreen Fredrick DNP RN, Bruce Gnesda RN , Mary-Catherine Bohan LCSW, Frank Ghinassi and Roy Chengappa KN

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