Development of a Tool to Improve Screening Rates for Cardiometabolic Risk Factors Associated with Mental Illness

2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (S1) ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
J. Newcomer ◽  
D. Haupt
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Risk Factors ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Cardiometabolic Risk ◽  
Plasma Lipids ◽  
Drug Effects ◽  
Premature Mortality ◽  
Public Health Approach

Major mental illness is associated with premature mortality, primarily from cardiovascular disease. Modifiable risk factors include obesity, smoking, hyperglycemia, dyslipidemia and hypertension, all prevalent in this population, and commonly underrecognized and undertreated. Public health guidelines for screening and interventions to lower risk have reduced cardiovascular mortality in the general population, but these improvements have not extended to mentally ill populations. Recent recommendations to screen in this population have come from psychiatric professional groups, and in relation to regulatory warnings on potential adverse drug effects. However, recent studies suggest low levels of monitoring, both pre- and post-guidelines and warnings.Public health interest is now directed at improving screening in this population. One of the barriers to increasing screening is limited awareness among mental health professionals of the details of existing public health guidelines that define specific risk thresholds, diagnostic values and treatment targets for adiposity, blood pressure, plasma glucose and plasma lipids levels. Quality assurance/quality improvement (QA/QI) tools to facilitate screening include data collection forms that educate about risk parameters and organize patient data in a manner that helps to track risk over time.This presentation will describe a specific QA/QI tool for screening and monitoring cardiometabolic risk in the mentally ill, based on published guidelines from the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) and the European Society for Cardiology (ESC). Cardiometabolic screening, along with treatment approaches and interventions to reduce risk, offers an established public health approach to lower morbidity and mortality in vulnerable populations.

Families Living with Mental Illness

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aditi Rana
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Primary Caregivers ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Indian Context ◽  
The Family ◽  
Partner Research

Mental illness is a growing reality of our times. Usually in a typical Indian family, the parents act as the primary caregivers for the child suffering from mental disorder. For adult sufferers, it can also be siblings or offspring, and  at times even spouse or partner. Research on the experiences of families of mentally ill people has been minimal in the Indian context. This study aims to shift the focus from the mentally ill patients to the suffering of the caregivers and families of the patient keeping in mind the interconnected well being of the family in a collectivist culture. Following a qualitative approach, narratives have been taken from the family members of mentally ill (narratives of 8 families with mentally ill person) and also the mental health professionals (two) through semi structured interviews. The findings suggest that the family members suffer from a significant amount of stress accompanied by burden. Also, they feel secluded from the society and experience a lack of assistance to deal with the mentally ill member of the family.

Children's Attitudes toward Mental Illness as Assessed by the Opinions about Mental Illness Scale

1985 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 251-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Franchot Weiss
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Psychiatric Patients ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Elementary School Age ◽  
The Public ◽  
Children's Attitudes ◽  
Attitudes Toward Mental Illness ◽  
Opinions About Mental Illness

Research on attitudes toward mental illness held by the public, by mental health professionals and personnel, and by psychiatric patients and their families is substantial. Little attention has been given to children's attitudes toward mental illness and the mentally ill, so this exploratory-descriptive study examined the developmental trends of children's attitudes toward the mentally ill. An adaptation of the Opinions About Mental Illness Scale was given to 512 elementary school age children who were placed in Grades 2, 4, 6, and 8. It was determined that with increasing grade/age children took a less authoritarian attitude toward the mentally ill and viewed mentally ill persons as more like themselves. Children rook an increasingly parernalistic view of the mentally ill, were less likely to see mental illness as an illness like any other, perceived mental patients as less of a threat to society and needing fewer restrictions. Finally, with increasing age/grade children perceived mental illness as less likely attributable to inadequate, deprived or interpersonal experiences. Results were discussed in terms of a relatively increased “positive attitude” and the relative acceptance and rejection of the mentally ill.

scholarly journals Systematic Review of the Impact of Behavioral Health Homes on Cardiometabolic Risk Factors for Adults With Serious Mental Illness

2020 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen L. Fortuna ◽  
Peter R. DiMilia ◽  
Matthew C. Lohman ◽  
Brandi P. Cotton ◽  
Janet R. Cummings ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Systematic Review ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Behavioral Health ◽  
Serious Mental Illness ◽  
Cardiometabolic Risk ◽  
Cardiometabolic Risk Factors ◽  
Health Homes ◽  
The Impact

scholarly journals Tensions and Paradoxes of Stigma: Discussing Stigma in Mental Health Rehabilitation

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (16) ◽  
pp. 5943
Author(s):  
Jenny Paananen ◽  
Camilla Lindholm ◽  
Melisa Stevanovic ◽  
Elina Weiste
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Rehabilitation Centers ◽  
Health Rehabilitation ◽  
Mental Health Rehabilitation

Mental illness remains as one of the most stigmatizing conditions in contemporary western societies. This study sheds light on how mental health professionals and rehabilitants perceive stigmatization. The qualitative study is based on stimulated focus group interviews conducted in five Finnish mental health rehabilitation centers that follow the Clubhouse model. The findings were analyzed through inductive content analysis. Both the mental health rehabilitants and the professionals perceived stigmatization as a phenomenon that concerns the majority of rehabilitants. However, whereas the professionals viewed stigma as something that is inflicted upon the mentally ill from the outside, the rehabilitants perceived stigma as something that the mentally ill themselves can influence by advancing their own confidence, shame management, and recovery. Improvements in treatment, along with media coverage, were seen as the factors that reduce stigmatization, but the same conceptualization did not hold for serious mental illnesses. As the average Clubhouse client was thought to be a person with serious mental illness, the rehabilitation context designed to normalize attitudes toward mental health problems was paradoxically perceived to enforce the concept of inevitable stigma. Therefore, it is important for professionals in rehabilitation communities to be reflexively aware of these tensions when supporting the rehabilitants.

No health without mental health—mens sana in corpore sano

2019 ◽  
pp. 177-200
Author(s):  
John Ashton
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Serious Mental Illness ◽  
Public Mental Health ◽  
Public Health Approach ◽  
Planned Parenthood ◽  
Psychiatric Expertise ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
The Media

This chapter approaches the important subject of mental health and wellbeing through the lens of public health. Drawing on his own experience as a physician who specializes in psychiatry before moving into public health the author describes the struggle to move upstream from a sole focus on treating serious mental illness to the recent developments in public mental health and offers a framework for action. This draws on a historical overview of the differing emphases that have played in over the past two hundred years. This framework focuses on public health aspects as well as prevention and mitigation of harm from serious mental illness, and addresses the need for whole population approaches to mental health and mental health promotion. Examples of interventions that draw on public health interventions are given. These include the importance of planned parenthood and sexual health, the appropriate use of psychiatric expertise in support of population and community mental health, the centrality of concepts such as self-esteem, and the necessity to take a public health approach to the new challenge of dementia. Behavioural contagion, the role of the media, and the prevention of suicide are among the topics covered.

The Smoking Gap

Pained ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 163-166
Author(s):  
Michael D. Stein ◽  
Sandro Galea
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Smoking Prevalence ◽  
Premature Mortality ◽  
The United States ◽  
High School Education ◽  
Public Health Approach ◽  
Smoking Rate ◽  
American Southeast ◽  
Education Groups ◽  
College Educated

This chapter discusses the smoking gap. Fifty years ago, smoking prevalence for all education groups was clustered at the 40%–45% mark. Five decades later, 6.5% of college-educated individuals continue to smoke, while the prevalence is more than triple that among those with a high school education or less (23.1%). These smokers tend to be disadvantaged socially and economically, and bear the majority of morbidity and premature mortality. As such, in the process of lowering smoking overall, people have created a smoking gap between those who are well-educated and those who are less educated, between those with higher and lower incomes. However, the smoking gap is not restricted only to socioeconomic status. Geography is also at play. “Tobacco Nation”—a swath across the American Southeast where 700 million pounds of tobacco are harvested annually, and rates of smoking remain higher than elsewhere—suggests that policy, culture, and the persistent influence of the tobacco industry in this region has shaped who smokes and who does not in the United States. Other studies have documented the high tobacco retailer density in neighborhoods with larger proportions of African Americans, the ethnic group with the highest smoking prevalence. The chapter then details what people can learn from the smoking gap and the best public health approach to reduce the smoking rate.

Constructing Mental Illness as Dangerous: A Pilot Study

1999 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 240-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Wilson ◽  
Raymond Nairn ◽  
John Coverdale ◽  
Aroha Panapa
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Prime Time ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Television Production ◽  
Sound Effects ◽  
Stigma Of Mental Illness ◽  
Cutting Point

Objective: There is a dearth of studies examining how dangerousness is constructed in media depictions of mentally ill individuals who are frequently portrayed as acting violently. The aim of the present study was to identify the contribution of diverse technical, semiotic and discursive resources utilised in portraying a character with a mental illness in a prime-time drama as dangerous. Method: Discourse analytic techniques, involving systematic, repeated, critical viewings, were applied to a single program drawn from a sample of prime-time television drama episodes touching on mental illness. Results: Nine devices (appearance, music and sound effects, lighting, language, intercutting, jump-cutting, point of view shots, horror conventions and intertextuality) were identified as contributing to the signified dangerousness of person receiving care in the community for a mental illness. Conclusions: These techniques combine in signifying mental illness and a person suffering from it as dangerous. The findings suggest that mental health professionals working to reduce the stigma of mental illness need to have a reasonably sophisticated understanding of the practices and priorities of television production if they are to collaborate effectively with producers to create dramas that convey more human and sympathetic understandings of mental illness or to combat the negative effects of such portrayals.

scholarly journals Physical health disparities and mental illness: the scandal of premature mortality

2011 ◽  
Vol 199 (6) ◽  
pp. 441-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Thornicroft
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Health Disparities ◽  
Premature Mortality ◽  
Right To Health ◽  
Lifestyle Risk Factors ◽  
People With Mental Illness ◽  
Lifestyle Risk ◽  
The Right ◽  
International Conventions

SummaryA 20-year mortality gap for men, and 15 years for women, is still experienced by people with mental illness in high-income countries. The combination of lifestyle risk factors, higher rates of unnatural deaths and poorer physical healthcare contribute to this scandal of premature mortality that contravenes international conventions for the ‘right to health.’

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