Search results for ‘Subject term:"mental health problems"’ Sort:
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Failure and delay in treatment-seeking across anxiety disorders
- Authors:
- JOHNSON Emily M., COLES Meredith E.
- Journal article citation:
- Community Mental Health Journal, 49(6), 2013, pp.668-674.
- Publisher:
- Springer
Anxiety disorders are a significant mental health problem. Despite the availability of effective treatments most sufferers do not seek help. The current study assesses delays in treatment-seeking, failure to seek treatment, and reasons for delaying treatment for individuals with anxiety disorders. Data were drawn from the Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiological Surveys including 3,805 participants and analyses focused on treatment-seeking variables. Results indicate that individuals with anxiety disorders are less likely to seek treatment from a professional and more likely to experience delays in obtaining both any treatment, and effective treatment, than individuals with other forms of mental illness (in this case unipolar depression or substance use disorders). Deficits in mental health literacy (knowledge and beliefs about mental illness) were commonly endorsed as reasons for having delayed seeking treatment. The current study highlights the importance of improving knowledge about anxiety disorders to improve treatment-seeking. (Publisher abstract)
Quantifying violence in mental health research
- Authors:
- HARRIS Stephanie T., OAKLEY Clare, PICCHIONI Marco
- Journal article citation:
- Aggression and Violent Behavior, 18(6), 2013, p.695–701.
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
Research into mental illness and its relationship with violence has been constrained by inconsistencies in the definition and measurement of violent behaviour. The author conducted a systematic literature search of Scopus, EMBASE, PsycINFO, and Ovid Medline with search terms relating to the measurement, rating and quantification of violent behaviour in mentally disordered populations. The authors identified nine tools designed to assess violence and critically evaluated them. Broadly, measurement tools tended to focus on multiple, but different, facets of violence, which included: severity of act, severity of outcome, frequency and intent, with each suggested as a valid outcome measure for violent acts. The use of multiple sources of information to inform assessment appears to provide detail; however, that detail is then often diluted as a result of dichotomisation of sample groups. This presents methodological challenges for the field. Future studies should give consideration to the trade-off between preserving the richness of data and the difficulties associated with recruiting large patient samples. Studies should move from simply defining violence towards quantification across different dimensions of violence and using multiple sources of information. Abbreviations: MOAS, Modified Overt Aggression Scale; LHA, Lifetime History of Aggression scale; QOVS, Quantification of Violence Scale; CVS, Crime and Violence Scale; Attacks, Attempted and Actual Assault Scale; VAS, Visual Analogue Scale (Publisher abstract)
Test-retest reliability of PsyCheck: a mental health screening tool for substance use treatment clients
- Authors:
- JENNER Linda, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Advances in Dual Diagnosis, 6(4), 2013, pp.168-175.
- Publisher:
- Emerald
The PsyCheck screening tool was designed for use by non-mental health specialists to detect common mental health problems. In order to examine the test-retest reliability of the PsyCheck screening tool, 50 drug users in Melbourne were given the Self Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ; PsyCheck version) in their first three months of treatment at two time points, between five and nine days apart. The results suggest that the SRQ (PsyCheck version) has good test-retest reliability and confirms that the SRQ (PsyCheck) is a stable and reliable instrument for use within drug treatment settings. The implications of the use of screening tools not validated within alcohol and drug treatment setting are discussed. (Edited publisher abstract)
Factors affecting attitude towards seeking professional help for mental illness: a UK Arab perspective
- Authors:
- HAMID Aseel, FURNHAM Adrian
- Journal article citation:
- Mental Health Religion and Culture, 16(7), 2013, pp.741-758.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
- Place of publication:
- Philadelphia, USA
This study examined various factors affecting attitude towards seeking professional psychological help (ATSPPH) in Arabs living in the UK: causal beliefs, shame-focused attitudes, confidentiality concerns, ethnic identity and demographic variables. Participants completed an online questionnaire and results indicated that Arabs showed significantly less positive ATSPPH and had stronger causal beliefs in supernatural and non-Western physiology than British Caucasians. Confidentiality concerns, but not shame-focused attitudes were significant predictors of ATSPPH; confidentiality concerns were more significant for Arabs than for British Caucasians. Implications are drawn from the results. (Publisher abstract)
Animal magic
- Author:
- ALLEN Daniel
- Journal article citation:
- Mental Health Today, July/August 2013, pp.12-13.
- Publisher:
- Pavilion
- Place of publication:
- Hove
The therapeutic benefits of animals to people with mental ill health is increasingly being recognised and becoming a more common part of services. This article describes the benefits and briefly reports on the work of Critterish Allsorts, and independent animal assisted therapy and education service provider in the UK. (Original abstract)
Do maternal and paternal mental illness and substance abuse predict treatment outcomes for children exposed to violence?
- Authors:
- RISSER Heather J., et al
- Journal article citation:
- Child Care in Practice, 19(3), 2013, pp.217-220.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
This study examined whether having a parent with a mental illness or a parent who abuses substances predicts treatment outcomes for children receiving community-based services for exposure to violence. From 2001 to 2011, data were collected from 492 children from one-and-a-half to seven years old and their primary caregivers enrolled in Safe From the Start services. Results indicated significant improvements pre-intervention to post-intervention in child emotional and behavioural problems, as measured by the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). One-way bivariate analyses indicated that children of mothers or fathers with a mental illness and children of mothers who abused substances had higher CBCL scores at intake. Repeated-measures analyses of variance revealed a main effect such that maternal and paternal mental illness and maternal substance abuse were associated with poorer CBCL scores. The only parental risk factor to moderate the association between treatment and CBCL scores was paternal mental illness. Treatment was associated with greater improvement in CBCL scores for children of fathers with, relative to those without, mental illness, and the effect was due to higher CBCL scores at intake for children of fathers with mental illness rather than lower outcome scores. Results suggest that Safe From the Start services which provide early intervention can be effective in improving children's emotional and behavioural functioning. Additionally, the effectiveness of services appears to be robust to parental risk factors such as mental illness and substance abuse.
Recovery capital: what enables a sustainable recovery from mental health difficulties?
- Author:
- TEW Jerry
- Journal article citation:
- European Journal of Social Work, 16(3), 2013, pp.360-374.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
There is increasing international interest in recovery approaches in mental health; and this connects with an emerging focus within European social work around promoting capability and sustainability. Research at a population level would suggest that social factors rather than medical interventions are the main determinants of recovery from mental health difficulties. However, this is not yet reflected in social work practice, which can still be dominated by biomedical perspectives and a focus on risk management. Drawing upon and extending analyses of social and other forms of capital, this paper outlines the basis for a new paradigm for mental health social work that is specifically oriented towards enabling the development of personal efficacy and social capability. Such an approach is explicitly focused on achieving longer-term sustainability rather than shorter-term problem solving. (Edited publisher abstract)
Toward the integration of neuroscience and clinical social work
- Author:
- MONTGOMERY Arlene
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Social Work Practice, 27(3), 2013, pp.333-339.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
- Place of publication:
- Philadelphia, USA
This article reviews recent findings in neuroscience in light of the history of social work, the scientific support for clinical social work interventions, and the challenges of integrating neuroscience into academic and practice settings. Illustrations of several critical neurophysiological underpinnings of important clinical phenomena are described, including disorders of personality, defence mechanisms, attachment styles, and the close relationship between ego functions and right hemisphere functions. (Edited publisher abstract)
DSM-5 and the general definition of personality disorder
- Author:
- WAKEFIELD Jerome C.
- Journal article citation:
- Clinical Social Work Journal, 41(2), 2013, pp.168-183.
- Publisher:
- Springer
- Place of publication:
- New York
There is a fundamental change proposed for DSM-5 in the general definition of personality disorder, representing a new conceptualisation that shapes how the DSM distinguishes personality pathology from other undesirable or negative personality features. The change is needed due to serious deficiencies in the current DSM-IV approach. Specifically, personality disorder is to be conceptualised as impairment in both self organisation and interpersonal relating, caused by pathological (extreme) personality traits. This represents progress in that marked impairment in self organisation and interpersonal relating are plausibly characteristic of personality disorder. However, the required level of impairment remains too low, and the kinds of impairment are not restricted to those which indicate disorder versus culturally undesirable features. Moreover, extreme traits are neither necessary nor sufficient for personality disorder because personality represents not the sum of traits but the holistic organisation of traits and other meanings. The DSM-5’s diagnostic focus on traits thus potentially opens the way to massive false positive diagnoses. An earlier proposal to reframe personality disorders using global similarity matching of the patient’s condition to prototypical descriptions of specific personality disorders is argued to also lead toward less valid diagnoses. (Publisher abstract)
Expert opinions on community services for people with intellectual disabilities and mental health problems
- Authors:
- HEMMINGS Colin, AL-SHEIKH Alaa
- Journal article citation:
- Advances in Mental Health and Intellectual Disabilities, 7(3), 2013, pp.169-174.
- Publisher:
- Emerald
A total of 14 multidisciplinary professionals from specialist intellectual disabilities services in the UK were interviewed about their opinions on four key areas of community service provision. These included the review and monitoring of service users, their access to social, leisure and occupational activities, the support, advice and training around mental health for a person's family or carers and “out of hours” and crisis responses. The interview data was used for coding using the NVivo 7 software package and then analyzed using thematic analysis. Analysis of participants' views on these key essential service components produced wider themes of importance. The ten major emergent themes for services were: their configuration/structure, their clarity of purpose/care pathways, their joint working, their training, their flexibility, their resources, their evidence-base, being holistic/multidisciplinary, being needs-led/personalised and providing accessible information. Selective quotations are included in the article to illustrate the main themes. These views of experts can help inform further research for the development and the evaluation of services. (Edited publisher abstract)