mental illness

Review Question: What are the spiritual aspects of family caregivers' experiences when caring for a community-dwelling adult with severe mental illness?;

Background and Objective: Psycho-education is an intervention integrating psychotherapeutic and educational strategies. Whilst carer psycho-education is known to aid in psychiatric disorders, at present there is no known tool to assess the degree to which this is routinely provided by mental health professionals. Our objective was to develop and validate a tool, in English, which assesses psycho-education of carers of psychiatric patients in Pakistan. Methods: A questionnaire was generated in English.

Hospitalisation of a parent with acute mental health problems impacts the consumer, their extended family/carers and children. Mental health nurses are at the forefront of promoting recovery for consumers in an acute inpatient setting. Recovery-oriented care can include provision of family-focused care which supports recovery of the parent-consumer and their family members and contributes to prevention of intergenerational mental illness.

Cigarette smoking poses significant health burdens for people with mental illness. They die sooner than they should, and smoking is a major contributor to their high rates of morbid chronic physical health conditions and early mortality, compared to the general population. Family carers provide important support to people with mental illness. However, family carers' perspectives of smoking by their family members with mental illness are largely absent from the research literature and from practice, despite smoking rates remaining high and quit rates remaining low for this population.

Aims and Objectives To elicit the perspectives of carers of people with mental illness regarding access to, and experience with, physical healthcare services for mental health consumers. Background People diagnosed with mental illness have increased risks of physical illness and earlier death, problems able to be addressed through better physical health services. Carers of people with mental illness play a significant role in the mental healthcare system yet research examining their views is lacking. Design Qualitative exploratory.

Background: Persons with psychiatric disorders (PD) commonly have their money officially or unofficially managed by others, with money managers most commonly being family members. Aims: (i) Identify characteristics of persons with PD, adult family members, and interactions with each other significantly associated with family money management (FMM). (ii) Identify significant differences in aforementioned characteristics between official versus unofficial FMM.

The aim of this study was to explore the needs of Family Caregivers of people living with mental illness in Kumasi, Ghana. An exploratory research design using a Qualitative approach was employed for the study and one on one interview was used to collect data. A total of 13 participants who were identified as Family Caregivers of mentally ill persons having their rehabilitation in Kumasi were used for the study. Thematic content analysis was used to analyse and interpret the qualitative data.

WHAT IS KNOWN ON THE SUBJECT?: Existing literature provides insight into the general experience of carers of people with a mental illness. Previous studies have found that carers experience a range of emotions when looking after their relatives with a mental illness. However, experiences of carers as they engage with the healthcare system is largely absent from the literature. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS TO EXISTING KNOWLEDGE?: This paper identified the experiences of carers when their relatives are experiencing a crisis or acutely unwell.

Background: Shortened life expectancy of people with mental illness is now widely known and the focus of research and policy activity. To date, research has primarily reflected perspectives of health professionals with limited attention to the views and opinions of those most closely affected. The voice of carers is particularly minimal, despite policy stipulating carer participation is required for mental health services. Aim: To present views and opinions of carers regarding physical health of the people they care for.

Background: The recovery process of a psychiatric patient is related to his primary informal caregiver's style of coping with stress. There is insufficient literature on validations of instruments that measure coping styles in this population. Objective: To adapt and validate a scale to measure coping strategies in primary informal caregivers. Method: The adapted scale was based on the Extreme Coping Scale of López‐Vázquez and Marván. Items from that scale were adapted for application to informal caregivers.