Pilot trial of a media intervention with journalism students on news reporting of mental illness in the context of violence and crime

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna M. Ross ◽  
Amy J. Morgan ◽  
Alexandra Wake ◽  
Anthony F. Jorm ◽  
Nicola J. Reavley
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Pilot Trial ◽  
News Reporting ◽  
Media Intervention ◽  
Journalism Students

scholarly journals The SOFIA pilot trial: a cluster-randomized trial of coordinated, co-produced care to reduce mortality and improve quality of life in people with severe mental illness in the general practice setting

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. P. Rozing ◽  
A. Jønsson ◽  
R. Køster-Rasmussen ◽  
T. D. Due ◽  
J. Brodersen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
General Practice ◽  
Severe Mental Illness ◽  
General Practitioners ◽  
Pilot Trial ◽  
Care Program ◽  
Coordinated Care ◽  
Educational Training

Abstract Background People with severe mental illness (SMI) have an increased risk of premature mortality, predominantly due to somatic health conditions. Evidence indicates that primary and tertiary prevention and improved treatment of somatic conditions in patients with SMI could reduce this excess mortality. This paper reports a protocol designed to evaluate the feasibility of a coordinated co-produced care program (SOFIA model, a Danish acronym for Severe Mental Illness and Physical Health in General Practice) in the general practice setting to reduce mortality and improve quality of life in patients with severe mental illness. Methods The SOFIA pilot trial is designed as a cluster randomized controlled trial targeting general practices in two regions in Denmark. We aim to include 12 practices, each of which is instructed to recruit up to 15 community-dwelling patients aged 18 and older with SMI. Practices will be randomized by a computer in a ratio of 2:1 to deliver a coordinated care program or usual care during a 6-month study period. A randomized algorithm is used to perform randomization. The coordinated care program includes educational training of general practitioners and their clinical staff educational training of general practitioners and their clinical staff, which covers clinical and diagnostic management and focus on patient-centered care of this patient group, after which general practitioners will provide a prolonged consultation focusing on individual needs and preferences of the patient with SMI and a follow-up plan if indicated. The outcomes will be parameters of the feasibility of the intervention and trial methods and will be assessed quantitatively and qualitatively. Assessments of the outcome parameters will be administered at baseline, throughout, and at end of the study period. Discussion If necessary the intervention will be revised based on results from this study. If delivery of the intervention, either in its current form or after revision, is considered feasible, a future, definitive trial to determine the effectiveness of the intervention in reducing mortality and improving quality of life in patients with SMI can take place. Successful implementation of the intervention would imply preliminary promise for addressing health inequities in patients with SMI. Trial registration The trial was registered in Clinical Trials as of November 5, 2020, with registration number NCT04618250. Protocol version: January 22, 2021; original version

scholarly journals Engagement intervention versus treatment as usual for young adults with serious mental illness: a randomized pilot trial

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle R. Munson ◽  
James J. Jaccard ◽  
Lionel D. Scott ◽  
Sarah C. Narendorf ◽  
Kiara L. Moore ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Serious Mental Illness ◽  
Pilot Trial ◽  
Treatment As Usual ◽  
Versus Treatment ◽  
Engagement Intervention

Media Representation of Gender Patterns of Suicide in Taiwan

Crisis ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 144-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying-Yeh Chen ◽  
Paul S. F. Yip ◽  
Chi-Wei Tsai ◽  
Hsiang-Fang Fan
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Representation ◽  
Contributing Factors ◽  
News Reporting ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Gender Patterns ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
Official Records

Background: Extensive media reporting of suicide events has been indicated as a contributing factor to the upsurge in suicide rates in Taiwan in the past decade. Aims: The study compares gender differences in sociodemographic profiles and method of suicide selectively reported in the newspapers and all suicide cases registered in official death records. It also identifies gender differences in media reports of suicides. Methods: Articles reporting suicide news from four major newspapers in Taiwan (China Times, United Daily, Liberty Times, and Apple Daily) in 2009 were retrieved and analyzed. Gender differences in sociodemographic profiles of suicides reported in the newspapers and official records of all suicide deaths were compared. Any gender differences in newspaper depictions of contributing factors of suicide and situations surrounding the suicidal acts were compared. Results: Newspapers in Taiwan tended to overreport unusual methods of suicide among men and extended suicide among women. The reasons for suicide in men were more frequently portrayed as work-related or after legal problems, whereas in women suicide was more frequently framed as due to mental illness or relationship problems. The news media tended to underreport mental illness as a reason for suicide in men. Limitation: The analysis was based solely on news reporting in the four major newspapers during the year 2009. Conclusions: Media representation of suicide generally follow societal-gendered assumptions of acceptable/unacceptable behaviors. Media professionals should be more careful and responsible in reporting suicide news and avoid any gender bias in their framing of suicide stories. Sensitive rather than sensational reporting should be promoted in order not to reinforce the myths of suicides in the community.

Pilot trial of the FOCUS mHealth intervention for veterans with serious mental illness in an outpatient VA setting (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Buck ◽  
Janelle Nguyen ◽  
Shelan Porter ◽  
Dror Ben-Zeev ◽  
Greg R. Reger
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Serious Mental Illness ◽  
Pilot Trial ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Management Intervention ◽  
Mhealth Intervention ◽  
Qualitative Feedback ◽  
The One ◽  
Specific Implementation ◽  
Serious Mental Illnesses

BACKGROUND Veterans with serious mental illnesses (SMI) face barriers to accessing in-person evidence-based interventions that improve illness management. Mobile health (mHealth) has been demonstrated to be feasible, acceptable, effective, and engaging among individuals with serious mental illness in community mental health settings. mHealth for SMI has not been tested within the VA. OBJECTIVE The present study examined the feasibility, acceptability and preliminary effectiveness of an mHealth intervention for serious mental illness in the context of VA outpatient care. METHODS Seventeen (n = 17) veterans with serious mental illnesses enrolled in a one-month pilot trial of FOCUS, a smartphone-based self-management intervention for serious mental illness. At baseline and post-test they completed measures examining symptoms and functional recovery. Participants provided qualitative feedback related to the usability and acceptability of the intervention. RESULTS Veterans completed on average 85.00 (SD = 96.11) interactions with FOCUS over the one-month intervention period. They reported high satisfaction, usability, and acceptability, with nearly all (n = 16, 94.1%) participants reporting that they would recommend the intervention to a fellow veteran. Qualitative feedback indicated that veterans thought mHealth complemented their existing VA services well and described potential opportunities to adapt FOCUS to specific subpopulations (e.g. combat veterans) as well as specific delivery modalities (e.g. groups). In the one-month period, participants experienced small improvements in self-assessed recovery, auditory hallucinations and quality of life. CONCLUSIONS The FOCUS mHealth intervention is feasible, acceptable, and usable among veterans. Future work should develop and examine VA-specific implementation approaches of FOCUS for this population.

scholarly journals Competing discourses and cultural intelligibility: Familicide, gender and the mental illness/distress frame in news

2021 ◽  
pp. 174165902110092
Author(s):  
Denise Buiten ◽  
Georgia Coe
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Family Violence ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Mental Distress ◽  
Nuclear Family ◽  
News Reporting ◽  
Health Distress ◽  
Gender And Power ◽  
Complex Forms ◽  
And Gender

Familicide – the killing of a partner and child(ren) – is a rare and complex crime that, when it occurs, receives intense media coverage. However, despite growing scholarly attention to filicide in the news, little research to date has looked at how familicide is represented. Situated at the intersection of filicide, intimate partner homicide and very often suicide, how the knotty and confronting issue of familicide is reported on is telling of the discourses available to understand complex forms of family violence. In this article, we argue that reporting on familicide mirrors broader feminist concerns about the tendency to frame fatal family violence at the hands of men in individualised terms – often as driven by mental illness – at the expense of an accounting of gender and power. Here, we seek to elaborate on and contextualise what we call the mental illness/distress frame as part of the broader tendency towards psychocentrism. This is amplified in cases of familicide where cultural signifiers for the increasingly publicly conceived of issue of ‘domestic violence’ are often not apparent, leading to popularised psychological explanations to be assumed. The mental health/distress frame operates not only to obscure the role of gender and power in domestic and family violence; it obscures the connection between gender, mental distress and violence, naturalising (and gender-neutralising) mental distress and violence as a response to it. We argue that intersecting discourses – of gender, age, disability and the heterosexual nuclear family, for instance – operate in important ways to suggest, support and rationalise this frame. We illustrate these ideas through a detailed case study analysis of news reporting on a case of familicide in Sydney, Australia.

scholarly journals Peer navigation for individuals with serious mental illness leaving jail: a pilot randomized trial study protocol

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maji Hailemariam ◽  
Lauren M Weinstock ◽  
Jennifer E. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Serious Mental Illness ◽  
Suicide Attempts ◽  
Psychiatric Symptoms ◽  
Controlled Trial ◽  
Pilot Trial ◽  
Public Health Problem ◽  
Training Methods ◽  
Peer Navigation

Abstract Background: Serious mental illness (SMI) is a prevalent public health problem affecting 25% of individuals in jail. Re-entry to the community following incarceration is a vulnerable time for justice-involved individuals with SMI. SMI requires prompt and ongoing access to mental health and other healthcare services. Methods: The study will: 1) develop a Mentoring And Peer Support (MAPS) intervention for post-release mental health and other service connection among jailed individuals with SMI, and 2) pilot-test the MAPS intervention to determine the feasibility and acceptability of the MAPS intervention. The primary outcomes will be to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of the proposed recruitment methods and research design, of the intervention training methods, of delivering the enhanced peer-navigator and control interventions. Study samples include (focus groups, open trial), and a randomized pilot trial in a sample of 40 individuals with SMI re-entering the community after jail release. Secondary outcomes will include post-release enrollment in mental health, medical care, and substance use services. We will also evaluate reduction in psychiatric symptoms, improvements in functioning, adherence to psychiatric medications, fewer substance using days, fewer hospitalizations and suicide attempts, nights unstably housed, and time until rearrest. Discussion: This pilot study will evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of a peer navigation intervention for individuals with serious mental illness leaving jails. The study will serve as a formative work for a larger randomized controlled trial assessing the effectiveness of peer navigator intervention for (include the primary outcome) in this population.

scholarly journals Improving cognition in severe mental illness by combining cognitive remediation and transcranial direct current stimulation: study protocol for a pragmatic randomized controlled pilot trial (HEADDSET)

Trials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anika Poppe ◽  
Leonie Bais ◽  
Daniëlle van Duin ◽  
Branislava Ćurčić-Blake ◽  
Gerdina Hendrika Maria Pijnenborg ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Direct Current ◽  
Neural Plasticity ◽  
Cognitive Impairments ◽  
Pilot Trial ◽  
Cognitive Remediation ◽  
Residential Facilities ◽  
Daily Functioning ◽  
Service Users ◽  
Treatment As Usual

Abstract Background A fundamental challenge for many people with severe mental illness (SMI) is how to deal with cognitive impairments. Cognitive impairments are common in this population and limit daily functioning. Moreover, neural plasticity in people with SMI appears to be reduced, a factor that might hinder newly learned cognitive skills to sustain. The objective of this pilot trial is to investigate the effects of cognitive remediation (CR) on cognitive and daily functioning in people dependent on residential settings. In addition, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is used to promote neural plasticity. It is expected that the addition of tDCS can enhance learning and will result in longer-lasting improvements in cognitive and daily functioning. Methods This is a pragmatic, triple-blinded, randomized, sham-controlled, pilot trial following a non-concurrent multiple baseline design with the participants serving as their own control. We will compare (1) CR to treatment as usual, (2) active/sham tDCS+CR to treatment as usual, and (3) active tDCS+CR to sham tDCS+CR. Clinical relevance, feasibility, and acceptability of the use of CR and tDCS will be evaluated. We will recruit 26 service users aged 18 years or older, with a SMI and dependent on residential facilities. After a 16-week waiting period (treatment as usual), which will serve as a within-subject control condition, participants will be randomized to 16 weeks of twice weekly CR combined with active (N = 13) or sham tDCS (N = 13). Cognitive, functional, and clinical outcome assessments will be performed at baseline, after the control (waiting) period, directly after treatment, and 6-months post-treatment. Discussion The addition of cognitive interventions to treatment as usual may lead to long-lasting improvements in the cognitive and daily functioning of service users dependent on residential facilities. This pilot trial will evaluate whether CR on its own or in combination with tDCS can be a clinically relevant addition to further enhance recovery. In case the results indicate that cognitive performance can be improved with CR, and whether or not tDCS will lead to additional improvement, this pilot trial will be extended to a large randomized multicenter study. Trial registration Dutch Trial Registry NL7954. Prospectively registered on August 12, 2019.

scholarly journals Peer navigation for individuals with serious mental illness leaving jail: a randomized trial study protocol

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maji Hailemariam ◽  
Lauren M Weinstock ◽  
Jennifer E. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Serious Mental Illness ◽  
Suicide Attempts ◽  
Psychiatric Symptoms ◽  
Controlled Trial ◽  
Pilot Trial ◽  
Public Health Problem ◽  
Training Methods ◽  
Peer Navigation

Abstract Background: Serious mental illness (SMI) is a prevalent public health problem affecting 25% of individuals in jail. Re-entry to the community following incarceration is a vulnerable time for justice-involved individuals with SMI. SMI requires prompt and ongoing access to mental health and other healthcare services.Methods: The study will: 1) develop a Mentoring And Peer Support (MAPS) intervention for post-release mental health and other service connection among jailed individuals with SMI, and 2) pilot-test the MAPS intervention to determine the feasibility and acceptability of the MAPS intervention. The primary outcomes will be to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of the proposed recruitment methods and research design, of the intervention training methods, of delivering the enhanced peer-navigator and control interventions. Study samples include (focus groups, open trial), and a randomized pilot trial in a sample of 40 individuals with SMI re-entering the community after jail release. Secondary outcomes will include post-release enrollment in mental health, medical care, and substance use services. We will also evaluate reduction in psychiatric symptoms, improvements in functioning, adherence to psychiatric medications, fewer substance using days, fewer hospitalizations and suicide attempts, nights unstably housed, and time until rearrest.Discussion: This pilot study will evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of a peer navigation intervention for individuals with serious mental illness leaving jails. The study will serve as a formative work for a larger randomized controlled trial assessing the effectiveness of peer navigator intervention for (include the primary outcome) in this population.

scholarly journals Peer navigation for individuals with serious mental illness leaving jail: a randomized trial study protocol

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maji Hailemariam ◽  
Lauren M Weinstock ◽  
Jennifer E. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Serious Mental Illness ◽  
Suicide Attempts ◽  
Psychiatric Symptoms ◽  
Controlled Trial ◽  
Pilot Trial ◽  
Public Health Problem ◽  
Training Methods ◽  
Peer Navigation

Abstract Background: Serious mental illness (SMI) is a prevalent public health problem affecting 25% of individuals in jail. Re-entry to the community following incarceration is a vulnerable time for justice-involved individuals with SMI. SMI requires prompt and ongoing access to mental health and other healthcare services. Methods: The study will: 1) develop a Mentoring And Peer Support (MAPS) intervention for post-release mental health and other service connection among jailed individuals with SMI, and 2) pilot-test the MAPS intervention to determine the feasibility and acceptability of the MAPS intervention. The primary outcomes will be to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of the proposed recruitment methods and research design, of the intervention training methods, of delivering the enhanced peer-navigator and control interventions. Study samples include (focus groups, open trial), and a randomized pilot trial in a sample of 40 individuals with SMI re-entering the community after jail release. Secondary outcomes will include post-release enrollment in mental health, medical care, and substance use services. We will also evaluate reduction in psychiatric symptoms, improvements in functioning, adherence to psychiatric medications, fewer substance using days, fewer hospitalizations and suicide attempts, nights unstably housed, and time until rearrest. Discussion: This pilot study will evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of a peer navigation intervention for individuals with serious mental illness leaving jails. The study will serve as a formative work for a larger randomized controlled trial assessing the effectiveness of peer navigator intervention for (include the primary outcome) in this population.

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