Community mental health services

Objectives: The scope of this study was to investigate the prevalence of psychotropic drug use and its association with the overburden felt by family caregivers of Psychosocial Care Center users. This is a cross-sectional study performed with 537 family caregivers in the 21st Health Region of the State of Rio Grande do Sul. Background: The prevalence of psychotropic drug use was calculated with a 95% confidence interval (95%CI) and the heterogeneity tests were performed between the strata of each independent variable.

This article describes the application of quality improvement (QI) to solve a long-standing, ongoing problem where service users or their carers felt they were not given enough information regarding diagnosis and medication during clinic assessments in a community mental health setting. Service users and carers had shared feedback that some of the information documented on clinic letters was not accurate and the service users were not given the opportunity to discuss these letters with the clinician.

This is a cross-sectional study conducted with 537 family caregivers of people with mental disorders. The objective was to quantify the degree of burden experienced by men and women, and identify the most affected dimensions of their lives and the factors associated with burden manifestation by gender. The Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI) scale was used to assess burden. Mean burden was 22.8 points (SD = 6.3) for men and 27.8 points (SD = 17.8) for women.

Objective: Psychological interventions reduce the impact of psychosis, but widescale implementation is problematic. We tested the feasibility of group acceptance and commitment therapy for Psychosis (G‐ACTp), delivered by frontline staff, and co‐facilitated by service‐user experts‐by‐experience (SU‐EbyE), for service‐users and informal caregivers (ISRCTN: 68540929). We estimated recruitment/retention rates and outcome variability for future evaluation.

Background: Recent government policy has highlighted the needs of family and friends who provide support to mental health service users. Carers of assertive outreach (AO) service users may be particularly in need of support. However, little is known about their experiences and how services can support them. Aim: To explore the experiences of carers of individuals receiving an AO service. Method: Ten participants were interviewed using a semi-structured interview schedule.

Objective: The objectives of this study were to: (i) obtain baseline data on the extent of carer involvement across a representative sample of hospital and community patients within an integrated area health service; and (ii) examine perspectives on discharge planning and community care among patients and their carers to identify information and resources they consider important.

The model of assertive outreach is one of the most internationally researched areas of community mental healthcare. An assertive outreach team at a mental health trust developed a handbook on the model, involving contributions from service users, carers, local clinicians and the voluntary sector. This article outlines the process of developing the handbook, and summarises its content and user feedback.

This paper reports findings from a qualitative study concerning the influence of implicit models of mental disorder on shared decision making within community-based mental health teams. One-hundred participants representing five distinct multi-agency groups: psychiatrists, community psychiatric nurses, approved social workers, patients and informal carers operating within Leicestershire, England were interviewed using a standard case vignette describing a person whose behaviour suggests he may have schizophrenia.

Little time may be taken to listen to what carers have to say or explain clinical and service policies. The odd 5 minutes at the end of a busy clinic is not enough; being paraded in front of the ward round is simply unacceptable, but it still happens. A 20-mile trip for family carers just as imprisoned by the patient’s mental illness, geographically and financially, may be impossible.

This article describes how Thurrock Council Social Services Department and South Essex Mental Health and Community Care NHS Trust launched a joint initiative to develop an integrated service strategy and implementation plan for older people's mental health services in Thurrock. The main principles of the approach were: service user and carer involvement, the active participation of mental health professionals working directly with service users and carers, representatives from all key agencies involved in the planning process.