English

This article highlights the importance of information‐sharing in mental health care and in particular the difficulties that can follow when practitioners do not perceive lay carers as ‘partners in care’. The findings of a survey, in which views were sought on poor information‐sharing as a barrier to engagement in mental health services, are reported. The authors conclude with a number of recommendations on improving the way information is shared.

Mencap finds no let up in stress for carers of people with learning disabilities as councils fail to assess their needs and make inadequate provision of short breaks. [Journal abstract]

The current study investigated the types of support networks and services accessed by people with progressive neurological illness, as well as the assessment of the usefulness of these services. The participants were 25 people with multiple sclerosis, 15 people with motor neurone disease, 23 people with Parkinson's disease, and six people with Huntington's disease. Twenty-eight professionals who worked with people with these illnesses and 41 carers of people with these illnesses also were interviewed.

The increasing focus on the involvement of people who use health and social care services and their carers in developing services and in social work education has the potential to bring significant change. This book examines the challenges in enabling people who are `experts by experience' to participate in an agenda which is largely dominated by 'top-down' managerial practices. Several themes run through the book.

This work includes foreword by Ian Botham, OBE, former England Cricket Captain and father of a daughter with Type 1 Diabetes. This groundbreaking book reveals how science and medicine have traditionally tried to make diabetes simple and orderly, despite its obvious messiness and complexity. The result has left patients, carers and health professionals confused and frustrated. Using complexity science, "Riding the Diabetes Rollercoaster" provides a radical new approach to understanding and managing diabetes that embraces its uncertainties and challenges.

Background: no longitudinal studies have addressed the effect of late life depression on the physical and mental health status of their informal caregivers.

Objective: to examine whether a diagnosis of depression in older medical inpatients is associated with the physical and mental health status of their informal caregivers after 6 months, independent of the physical health of the care recipient.

Design: longitudinal observational study with 6-month follow-up.

This document has been written to act as a resource for all those involved in developing or providing online services for carers and their families. Many organisations and local authorities are currently exploring how the internet can be used to reach more carers and to provide services more effectively. This guide offers advice and direction on the creation and expansion of websites and other online services for carers, based on the experiences of providers and the views of carers themselves.

Background. In most economically developed countries, patients, their informal and professional carers and policy makers are calling for more care in the community.

Objectives. To involve patients with cancer, and their carers, in designing a framework for providing effective cancer care in primary care.

Methods. Two discussion groups comprising 18 people with current cancer and carers met monthly over a year in the south of Scotland.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To explore and understand the experience of new informal caregivers in Italy during the transition from hospital to home.

BACKGROUND: Frequent patient discharge into the home environment has lead to a significant increase in postdischarge care being provided by family caregivers. The transition period in particular is seen as a period of great significance, as caregivers may be unprepared and concerned as to the amount of care required by the recipient.

We conducted a mixed-methods knowledge synthesis to assess the effectiveness of interventions to improve caregivers' involvement in decision making with seniors, and to describe caregivers' experiences of decision making in the absence of interventions. We analyzed forty-nine qualitative, fourteen quantitative, and three mixed-methods studies. The qualitative studies indicated that caregivers had unmet needs for information, discussions of values and needs, and decision support, which led to negative sentiments after decision making.