Lauren Pass, College of Pharmacy research associate and Master of Public Health student, and Korey Kennelty, assistant professor, Pharmacy Practice and Science, recently initiated a new study examining how anxiety and depressive disorders are managed in rural cardiovascular disease patients. The study utilizes patient interviews to identify mental health care needs in high-risk rural Iowa populations.

“Cardiovascular disease and mood disorders often go hand-in-hand,” says Pass who is project lead on this study. “Patients with mood disorders are at higher risk for developing cardiovascular disease and often have poorer cardiac outcomes than those without mood disorders. For rural patients, access to mental health care can be scarce, so it’s important that we identify ways of improving the delivery of mental health care within the settings most widely available to patients---their primary care clinics.”

The study is a sub-project of the Improved Cardiovascular Risk Reduction to Enhance Rural Primary Care (ICARE) clinical trial led by Barry Carter, professor in the College of Pharmacy. The study examined whether remote clinical pharmacists can be implemented in primary care offices to improve the care of patients living with cardiovascular disease.