Articles

How can a change in the operating system of the mental health review board promote the discharge of long-term hospitalized psychiatric patients? A case study of Seoul city

One of the most typical and chronic problem in Korean mental health system is the prolonged length of hospital stay. In contrast to there are many components which leads to long length of stay of psychiatric p...

Authors: Myung-Soo Lee, Hee-Young Lim, Youngki Kim and Yong-Suk Lee

Structural equation model of factors related to quality of life for community-dwelling schizophrenic patients in Japan

This study aimed to clarify how community mental healthcare systems can be improved.

Authors: Hirofumi Nakamura, Naoko Watanabe and Eisuke Matsushima

Goals and organisational structure of the movement for global mental health

The Movement for Global Mental Health (MGMH), established in 2008, is in a period of transition, as is the field of global mental health. The transfer of Secretariat functions from the Centre for International...

Authors: Harry Minas, Alexandra Wright and Ritsuko Kakuma

The development of mental health services within primary care in India: learning from oral history

In India very few of those who need mental health care receive it, despite efforts of the 1982 National Mental Health Programme and its district-level component the District Mental Health Programme (DMHP) to i...

Authors: Nadja van Ginneken, Sanjeev Jain, Vikram Patel and Virginia Berridge

A rapid appraisal of access to and utilisation of psychotropic medicines in Bihar, India

A major aspect of providing mental healthcare is access to and use of psychotropic medications. Bihar is a state in northeast India with limited mental healthcare provision; consequently access to and utilisat...

Authors: Prianka Padmanathan, Manoj Singh, Saju C Mannarath, Mayeh Omar and Shoba Raja

A position statement on mental health in the post-2015 development agenda

The Millennium Development Goals have guided development co-operation in the 15 years up to 2015, achieving some significant progress in the priorities on which they focused. As the framework for the post-2015...

Authors: Julian Eaton, Ritsuko Kakuma, Alexandra Wright and Harry Minas

Global mental health and development: a thematic series

Authors: Harry Minas

Attitudes towards people with mental illness among psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses, involved family members and the general population in a large city in Guangzhou, China

Stigma towards people with mental illness is believed to be widespread in low and middle income countries.

Authors: Bin Sun, Ni Fan, Sha Nie, Minglin Zhang, Xini Huang, Hongbo He and Robert A Rosenheck

Mental health in hypertension: assessing symptoms of anxiety, depression and stress on anti-hypertensive medication adherence

Patients with chronic conditions like hypertension may experience many negative emotions which increase their risk for the development of mental health disorders particularly anxiety and depression. For Ghanai...

Authors: Irene A Kretchy, Frances T Owusu-Daaku and Samuel A Danquah

Unravelling the spirits’ message: a study of help-seeking steps and explanatory models among patients suffering from spirit possession in Uganda

As in many cultures, also in Uganda spirit possession is a common idiom of distress associated with traumatic experiences. In the DSM-IV and -5, possession trance disorders can be classified as dissociative di...

Authors: Marjolein van Duijl, Wim Kleijn and Joop de Jong

A qualitative exploration of the recovery experiences of consumers who had undertaken shared management, person-centred and self-directed services

The mental health sector across states in Australia is moving to offering individualised funds and shared management, person-centred and self-directed (SPS) services. However, little is known about the recover...

Authors: Angus Buchanan, Sunila Peterson and Torbjorn Falkmer

Associations between changes in the pattern of suicide methods and rates in Korea, the US, and Finland

The lethality of the suicide method employed is a strong risk factor for the completion of suicide. We examined whether annual changes in the pattern of suicide methods is related to annual changes in suicide ...

Authors: Subin Park, Myung Hee Ahn, Ahrong Lee and Jin Pyo Hong

Development of forensic mental health services in Japan: working towards the reintegration of offenders with mental disorders

Until the recent enactment of the Medical Treatment and Supervision Act (MTSA) in 2005, neither legislations nor facilities for mentally disordered offenders were available in Japan. The aim of the country’s f...

Authors: Chiyo Fujii, Yusuke Fukuda, Kumiko Ando, Akiko Kikuchi and Takayuki Okada

The impact of services that offer individualised funds, shared management, person-centred relationships, and self-direction on the lived experiences of consumers with mental illness

Mental health service providers across Australia, including Western Australia (WA), have begun to offer individualised funds, shared management, person-centred and self-directed (SPS) services. No research exi...

Authors: Sunila Peterson, Angus Buchanan and Torbjorn Falkmer

Changes of anxiety in Chinese military personnels over time: a cross-temporal meta-analysis

Previous cross-temporal meta-analyses have demonstrated that anxiety would get severer over time. The changes of anxiety in Chinese military personnels over time remain unclear.

Authors: Zhibing Yang, Fei Cao, Huijie Lu, Xia Zhu and Danmin Miao

Mental health and psychiatric care in Bolivia: what do we know?

Recently Bolivia has implemented a universal health system, but their mental health policy is still emerging.

Authors: Denisse Jaen-Varas, Wagner Silva Ribeiro, Jessie Whitfield and Jairde Jesus Mari

Attitudes toward suicide among college students in South Korea and the United States

South Korea (hereafter, Korea) has witnessed a rapid increase in its suicide rate over the past few decades and currently reports the highest rate among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (O...

Authors: Kristen Kim and Jong-Ik Park

An overview of Ghana’s mental health system: results from an assessment using the World Health Organization’s Assessment Instrument for Mental Health Systems (WHO-AIMS)

This survey provides data on the Mental Health System in Ghana for the year 2011. It supplies essential planning information for the implementation of Ghana’s new Mental Health Act 846 of 2012, a renewal of th...

Authors: Mark Roberts, Caroline Mogan and Joseph B Asare

Using workshops to develop theories of change in five low and middle income countries: lessons from the programme for improving mental health care (PRIME)

The Theory of Change (ToC) approach has been used to develop and evaluate complex health initiatives in a participatory way in high income countries. Little is known about its use to develop mental health care...

Authors: Erica Breuer, Mary J De Silva, Abebaw Fekadu, Nagendra Prasad Luitel, Vaibhav Murhar, Juliet Nakku, Inge Petersen and Crick Lund

Psychiatric staff on the wards does not share attitudes on aggression

The concept of ward culture has been proposed as a reason for the often reported differences in treatment decisions when managing inpatient aggression. We therefore studied whether staff on wards actually shar...

Authors: Tero Laiho, Nina Lindberg, Grigori Joffe, Hanna Putkonen, Anja Hottinen, Raija Kontio and Eila Sailas

Depression among AIDS-orphaned children higher than among other orphaned children in southern India

Systematic data on mental health issues among orphaned children are not readily available in India. This study explored depression and its associated risk factors among orphaned children in Hyderabad city in s...

Authors: SG Prem Kumar, Rakhi Dandona, G Anil Kumar, SP Ramgopal and Lalit Dandona

Transgenerational consequences of PTSD: risk factors for the mental health of children whose mothers have been exposed to the Rwandan genocide

Understanding how parental Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) may or may not affect the development and mental health in the offspring is particularly important in conflict regions, where trauma-related illn...

Authors: Maria Roth, Frank Neuner and Thomas Elbert

Preparedness of Lithuanian general practitioners to provide mental healthcare services: a cross-sectional survey

A large unmet need for mental healthcare in Lithuania is partially attributable to a lack of primary care providers with skills in this area. The aim of this study was to assess general practitioners’ (GPs) ex...

Authors: Lina Jaruseviciene, Skirmante Sauliune, Gediminas Jarusevicius and Jeffrey Victor Lazarus

Uptake of a national primary mental health program by young people in Australia

The purpose of this study was to examine the uptake of an Australian primary mental health care program (Access to Allied Psychological Services) by young people aged 12 to 25 years and the characteristics of ...

Authors: Bridget Bassilios, Angela Nicholas, Lennart Reifels and Jane Pirkis

Policy perspectives and attitudes towards mental health treatment in rural Senegal

Mental health is often given low priority in health policy planning, particularly in developing countries. Several international health bodies, including the World Health Organization, recommend integrating me...

Authors: Nicole M Monteiro, Youssoupha Ndiaye, Demetri Blanas and Idrissa Ba

Effects of person-vocation fit and core self-evaluation on career commitment of medical university students: the mediator roles of anxiety and career satisfaction

How the career commitment of medical university students can be improved is an underinvestigated topic.

Authors: Wei Xiao, Liang Zhou, Qing Wu, Yan Zhang, Danmin Miao, Jiaxi Zhang and Jiaxi Peng

Family networks to improve outcomes in children with intellectual and developmental disorders: a qualitative study

There are at least 50 million children with an intellectual or developmental disorder in South Asia. The vast majority of these children have no access to any service and there are no resources to develop such...

Authors: Syed Usman Hamdani, Najia Atif, Mahjabeen Tariq, Fareed Aslam Minhas, Zafar Iqbal and Atif Rahman

Providing culturally appropriate mental health first aid to an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander adolescent: development of expert consensus guidelines

It is estimated that the prevalence of mental illness is higher in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adolescents compared to non-Aboriginal adolescents. Despite this, only a small proportion of Aboriginal ...

Authors: Kathryn J Chalmers, Kathy S Bond, Anthony F Jorm, Claire M Kelly, Betty A Kitchener and AJ Williams-Tchen

The Mental Health Leadership and Advocacy Program (mhLAP): a pioneering response to the neglect of mental health in Anglophone West Africa

Developing countries in Africa and other regions share a similar profile of insufficient human resources for mental health, poor funding, a high unmet need for services and a low official prioritisation of men...

Authors: Jibril Abdulmalik, Woye Fadahunsi, Lola Kola, Emeka Nwefoh, Harry Minas, Julian Eaton and Oye Gureje

Caregivers’ acceptance of alternatives to long-term psychiatric hospitalization; lessons and debates from the South Korean situation

A political movement towards building alternatives to long-term hospitalization of psychiatric patients in Korea has gained momentum. We aimed to provide sturdy foundation needed to formulate the most rational...

Authors: Myung-Soo Lee and Jong-Ik Park

Spatial analysis of schizotypal personality traits in Chinese male youths: evidence from a GIS-based analysis of Sichuan

Schizotypal personality traits are associated with schizophrenia spectrum disorders, stating that schizotypal traits may represent a “prodrome” or other developmental precursor of schizophrenia. Genetic and en...

Authors: Jiaxi Zhang, Wei Wang, Zhijun Tan, Qing Wu, Wei Xiao, Lei Shang, Yan Zhang, Jiaxi Peng and Danmin Miao

Service users’ perspectives in the design of an online tool for assisted self-help in mental health: a case study of implications

The involvement of persons with lived experiences of mental illness and service use is increasingly viewed as key to improving the relevance and utility of mental health research and service innovation. Guided...

Authors: Deede Gammon, Monica Strand and Lillian Sofie Eng

International journal of mental health systems: a bibliometric study

The International Journal of Mental Health Systems (IJMHS) was launched in August 2007 and has recently been given a formal impact factor. This study uses bibliometric indicators to review the performance of t...

Authors: Harry Minas, Alexandra Wright, Mengxue Zhao and Ritsuko Kakuma

Unpacking the psychiatric advance directive in low-resource settings: an exploratory qualitative study in Tamil Nadu, India

Psychiatric advance directives, a tool to document preferences for care in advance of decisional incapacity, have been shown to benefit persons with mental illness in a number of countries through improving me...

Authors: Laura S Shields, Soumitra Pathare, Selina DM van Zelst, Sophie Dijkkamp, Lakshmi Narasimhan and Joske GF Bunders

Does experienced seclusion or restraint affect psychiatric patients’ subjective quality of life at discharge?

In Finland major effort has been invested in reducing the use of coercion in psychiatric treatment, and the goal is to diminish the use of coercion by 40% by 2015. Improving patients’ quality of life (QoL) has...

Authors: Päivi Soininen, Hanna Putkonen, Grigori Joffe, Jyrki Korkeila, Pauli Puukka, Anneli Pitkänen and Maritta Välimäki

Qualitative evaluation of mental health services for clients with limited English proficiency

To meet federal requirements under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, the state of California instituted policies requiring that comprehensive mental health services in native languages be made available to lim...

Authors: Sita G Patel, William M Firmender and Lonnie R Snowden

An investigation of economic costs of schizophrenia in two areas of China

Schizophrenia is a severe psychotic disorder characterized by significant disturbances in thinking, perception, emotions and behavior. Even if it is not a very frequent disorder, but it is the most burdensome ...

Authors: Jinguo Zhai, Xiaofeng Guo, Min Chen, Jingping Zhao and Zhonghua Su

Short structured general mental health in service training programme in Kenya improves patient health and social outcomes but not detection of mental health problems - a pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial

A pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial.

Authors: Rachel Jenkins, Caleb Othieno, Stephen Okeyo, Dan Kaseje, Julyan Aruwa, Henry Oyugi, Paul Bassett and Felix Kauye

Identification, modification, and implementation of an evidence-based psychotherapy for children in a low-income country: the use of TF-CBT in Zambia

The need to address the treatment gap in mental health services in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) is well recognized and particularly neglected among children and adolescents. Recent literature with a...

Authors: Laura K Murray, Shannon Dorsey, Stephanie Skavenski, Margaret Kasoma, Mwiya Imasiku, Paul Bolton, Judith Bass and Judith A Cohen

Mental health research and evaluation in multicultural Australia: developing a culture of inclusion

Cultural and linguistic diversity is a core feature of the Australian population and a valued element of national identity. The proportion of the population that will be overseas-born is projected to be 32% by...

Authors: Harry Minas, Ritsuko Kakuma, Lay San Too, Hamza Vayani, Sharon Orapeleng, Rita Prasad-Ildes, Greg Turner, Nicholas Procter and Daryl Oehm

Pathways to psychiatric care in urban north China: a general hospital based study

Pathway studies highlight the help-seeking behaviors of patients with physical and mental illnesses. A number of studies in this field have been completed in various parts of the world. The purpose of this stu...

Authors: Weijun Zhang, Xuemei Li, Yan Lin, Xiulan Zhang, Zhiyong Qu, Xiaohua Wang, Huiwen Xu, Alvina Jiao, Mengqi Guo, Yurong Zhang, Yafang Li and Donghua Tian

Facility based cross-sectional study of self stigma among people with mental illness: towards patient empowerment approach

Self stigma among people with mental illness results from multiple cognitive and environmental factors and processes. It can negatively affect adherence to psychiatric services, self esteem, hope, social integ...

Authors: Eshetu Girma, Markos Tesfaye, Guenter Froeschl, Anne Maria Möller-Leimkühler, Sandra Dehning and Norbert Müller

HIV prevalence in persons with severe mental illness in Uganda: a cross-sectional hospital-based study

In Uganda, a previous study reported high HIV prevalence in persons with severe mental illness (SMI) compared to the general population, suggesting that persons with SMI might constitute a high-risk group for ...

Authors: Patric Lundberg, Noeline Nakasujja, Seggane Musisi, Anna Ekéus Thorson, Elizabeth Cantor-Graae and Peter Allebeck

Implementing the World Mental Health Survey Initiative in Portugal – rationale, design and fieldwork procedures

The World Mental Health Survey Initiative was designed to evaluate the prevalence, the correlates, the impact and the treatment patterns of mental disorders. This paper describes the rationale and the methodol...

Authors: Miguel Xavier, Helena Baptista, Jorge M Mendes, Pedro Magalhães and José M Caldas-de-Almeida

Implementing a court diversion and liaison scheme in a remand prison by systematic screening of new receptions: a 6 year participatory action research study of 20,084 consecutive male remands

A mental health needs assessment in the Irish prison population confirmed findings from other jurisdictions showing high prevalence of severe mental illness, including psychosis amongst those newly committed. ...

Authors: Clare McInerney, Mary Davoren, Grainne Flynn, Diane Mullins, Mary Fitzpatrick, Martin Caddow, Fintan Caddow, Sean Quigley, Fergal Black, Harry G Kennedy and Conor O’Neill

Which factors influence psychiatric diagnosing in substance abuse treatment?

The importance of diagnosing and treating co-occurring psychiatric disorders among substance abusers in treatment has received much attention. The aim of this study was to investigate to which extent co-occurr...

Authors: Rolf Wynn, Anne Landheim and Ellen Hoxmark

Do competing demands of physical illness in type 2 diabetes influence depression screening, documentation and management in primary care: a cross-sectional analytic study in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander primary health care settings

Relatively little is known about how depression amongst people with chronic illness is identified and managed in diverse primary health care settings. We evaluated the role of complex physical needs in influen...

Authors: Gill Schierhout, Tricia Nagel, Damin Si, Christine Connors, Alex Brown and Ross Bailie

A narrative review of factors influencing detection and treatment of depression in Vietnam

Depression is among the most common psychiatric conditions in primary health care, and constitutes an important part of the global disease burden. However, it is difficult to obtain comparable data on depressi...

Authors: Maria Niemi, Mats Målqvist, Kim Bao Giang, Peter Allebeck and Torkel Falkenberg

Making the use of psychotropic drugs more rational through the development of GRADE recommendations in specialist mental healthcare

In recent years the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) methodology has often been used by international or national health authorities, or scientific societies, for developi...

Authors: Giovanni Ostuzzi, Irene Bighelli, Barbara-Vanessa Carrara, Nicola Dusi, Giuseppe Imperadore, Camilla Lintas, Francesco Nifosì, Michela Nosè, Carlo Piazza, Marianna Purgato, Raffaella Rizzo and Corrado Barbui

Family burden of schizophrenic patients and the welfare system; the case of Cyprus

The shift from asylum to community care for mental health patients has burdened the providers of primary health care and, more than all, families. As a result, numerous studies [Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol

Authors: Christos Panayiotopoulos, Andreas Pavlakis and Menelaos Apostolou