Mental health problems

The Triangle of Care: Best Practice Guide on Acute Mental Health Care, which promotes the essential three-way relationship between professionals, service users, their carers and families is briefly discussed. The approach was developed by carers and staff who wanted to improve carer engagement in acute inpatient and home treatment services.

This article is an illustration of Indian families as caregivers who are direct sufferers due to family members affected by mental illness such as schizophrenia, and other psychiatric disorders. The practical aspects involved in the caregiving role of Indian families make them inevitable partners in care besides projecting a unique model to the other family support groups across the world. The discussion on barriers and gateways to the partnerships role of family provides an insight into the cultural dynamics of care in a country like India.

This paper reports on some of the findings from a collaborative study funded by the Big Lottery and led by Crossroads Caring for Carers about carers for people with mental health problems. The protection and use of information in mental health are firmly rooted in ethics and professional codes, law and policy, as well as values and professional practice. While government initiatives have attempted to augment the role and rights of carers, policy guidance involving information sharing between professionals and carers has failed to deal with the practical dilemmas of patient confidentiality.

Background : Britain's existing mental health legislation was introduced over 15 years ago. Since then, there has been considerable reorganisation of mental health care services but little research into the use of the Act in routine practice. Modernising Mental Health Services (1998) asserts that mental health legislation will be revised. Aim : The study investigates opinions about the strengths and weaknesses of Parts II and X of the Mental Health Act (1983) of those affected by it.

Cairdeas is operated by Penumbra Respite Care, a major Scottish mental health charity, and offers residential respite care as planned breaks for people with a wide range of mental ill health. It gives them short supported breaks away from their home environment to help them over difficult times and to give carers a break. The service is like a guest house, but has skilled staff working on a 24-hour basis and provides social outings like going to the cinema.

This paper describes the impact that learning about recovery has on mental health carers, exploring the implications of this research for UK social work and beyond. A steering group co-produced a training intervention on recovery that was delivered by the first author and a carer, both with experiences of recovery, to eleven carers. Mainly qualitative data, with supplementary socio-demographic data, were collected to evaluate the impact of this training. Thematic analysis was applied to the data.

An evaluation was conducted of voluntary sector family support workers (FSWs) working with families of schizophrenia sufferers. FSWs completed a diary schedule and interviews were conducted with 15 co-professionals from the FSWs' multi-disciplinary teams and 62 carers from FSWs' caseloads. Carers' problems were assessed using the burden component of the Social and Behavioural Assessment Schedule and the Lancashire Quality of Life Profile. Carers were asked about the type of support received and their satisfaction.

Family carers are a major source of help and assistance to the persons they provide care for. They are also major contributors to the welfare system, balancing the national health care expenditure. Increasing attention, in research as well as government policy, is being paid to their role as informal caregivers. Support to family carers seems to be a new ‘buzzword’ in Swedish Government policy. However, supporting family carers may prove to be a more complex endeavour than one initially might be led to believe.

Carers provide unpaid support to family or friends with physical or mental health problems. This support may be within the domain of activities of daily living, such as personal care, or providing additional emotional support. While research has explored the carer experience within the National Health Service in the United Kingdom, it has not focused specifically on carers of individuals with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (BPD). Eight carers for those with a diagnosis of BPD were invited to take part in two focus groups.