For at least a decade, concern has been expressed about the status of occupational therapy in mental health. Increases in the number of new jobs and clinicians have not kept pace with growth in other practice areas. Although growing criticism of the practice of deinstitutionalization and an increased focus on cost-effectiveness have recently become major public policy trends in mental health pr...

This is the second of a two-part unit on the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Part 1 explored the concept and definition of mental capacity, advance treatment decisions, independent mental capacity advocates and the act's code of practice. This part discusses possible ethical and legal dilemmas in the interpretation of both the act and its code of practice.

Psychiatric nurses' practice with parents who have mental illness, their children and families is an important issue internationally. This study provides a comparison of Irish and Australian psychiatric nurses' family-focused practices in adult mental health services. Three hundred and forty three nurses across Ireland and 155 from Australia completed the Family Focused Mental Health Practice Q...

BACKGROUND Facilitation uses personal contact between the facilitator and the professional to encourage good practice and better service organisation. The model has been applied to physical illness but not to psychiatric disorders. AIM To determine if a non-specialist facilitator can improve the recognition, management, and outcome of psychiatric illness presenting to general practitioners (G...

The Iraq war, and the subsequent involvement of various stakeholders in the post con£ict reconstruction of the health sector, presented an opportunity to learn about mental health policy development, challengesand obstacleswithin apost con£ict context in 2003.This paper documents and explores mental health policy in post invasion Iraq, using qualitative methodsand a health policyframework that ...

Despite considerable research on the learning of simple motor acts (e.g., finger tapping), we know relatively little about the changes that occur in higher order representations of complex motor skills as expertise develops (Annett, 1995; Colley, 1989; Holding, 1989; Jeannerod, 1994; MacKay, 1989; Rosenbaum, Inhoff, & Gordon, 1984; Schmidt, 1988). In the present study, the relation between the ...

OBJECTIVES To assess the knowledge, practice and attitude of traditional mental health practitioners (TMHPs) in four Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Kwara State, Nigeria, on mental health care; to organise training sessions aimed at improving their knowledge base, practice and; to evaluate such training after allowing for a period of practice. STUDY DESIGN/INTERVENTION: Pre-training evaluation...

BACKGROUND The objective is to compare the performance of the MHI-5 and GHQ-12, both measures of general mental health. Therefore, we studied the relationship of the GHQ-12 and MHI-5 with sociodemographic characteristics, self-reported visits to general practice and mental health care, and with diagnoses made by the general practitioner. METHODS Data were used from the Second Dutch National S...