Final conclusions

Author(s):  
Ahmed Samei Huda

The medical model in mental health uses diagnostic constructs with attached useful information (e.g. on prognosis or response to treatments) that often identifies areas of spectrums rather than diseases or syndromes. Diagnostic constructs in psychiatry and general medicine overlap for attributes such as clinical utility (e.g. predicting likely outcomes), validity (e.g. whether boundaries exist between different diagnostic constructs), and importance of social factors. There is an overlap in effectiveness between psychiatric and general medicine treatments, and many general medicine medications do not reverse disease processes. Describing the nature of diagnostic constructs can be done by describing the basis of classification and nature of the classified condition. Different mental health classifications have particular strengths and weaknesses for clinical, research, and social functions. Research in mental health may need classifications other than diagnosis to improve understanding of causes and mechanisms and also to develop better diagnostic constructs. As doctors in all specialties will encounter mental health problems there will always be psychiatric diagnostic constructs compatible with their training. The medical model of mental health allows doctors to assess and offer effective treatments to large numbers of patients and provide emergency cover. Mental health research and service provision will always need to address psychosocial issues.

Author(s):  
Ahmed Samei Huda

The medical model is a biopsychosocial model assessing a patient’s problems and matching them to the diagnostic construct using pattern recognition of clinical features. Diagnostic constructs allow for researching, communicating, teaching, and learning useful clinical information to influence clinical decision-making. They also have social and administrative functions such as access to benefits. They may also help explain why problems occur. Diagnostic constructs are used to describe diseases/syndromes and also other types of conditions such as spectrums of conditions. Treatments in medicine and psychiatry have several treatment objectives including cure or reducing distress and a variety of mechanisms of action apart from reversing disease/cure. Causation of conditions in medicine and psychiatry are often complex. The medical model allows doctors to assess and offer effective treatments to large numbers of patients and provide emergency cover. Diagnostic constructs in psychiatry and general medicine overlap for attributes such as clinical utility (e.g. predicting likely outcomes) and validity (e.g. lack of boundaries between different diagnostic constructs) and importance of social factors. There is an overlap in effectiveness between psychiatric and general medicine treatments and many general medicine medications do not reverse disease processes. Different mental health classifications have particular strengths and weaknesses for clinical, research, and social functions. Mental health research into understanding causes and mechanisms may need other classifications than diagnosis. As doctors in all specialties encounter mental health problems, there will always be psychiatric diagnostic constructs compatible with their training. Mental health research and service provision will always need to address psychosocial issues.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenessa N. Johnston ◽  
Lisa Ridgway ◽  
Sarah Cary-Barnard ◽  
Josh Allen ◽  
Carla L. Sanchez-Lafuente ◽  
...  

AbstractAs patient-oriented research gains popularity in clinical research, the lack of patient input in foundational science grows more evident. Research has shown great utility in active partnerships between patient partners and scientists, yet many researchers are still hesitant about listening to the voices of those with lived experience guide and shape their experiments. Mental health has been a leading area for patient movements such as survivor-led research, however the stigma experienced by these patients creates difficulties not present in other health disciplines. The emergence of COVID-19 has also created unique circumstances that need to be addressed. Through this lens, we have taken experiences from our patient partners, students, and primary investigator to create recommendations for the better facilitation of patient-oriented research in foundational science in Canada. With these guidelines, from initial recruitment and leading to sustaining meaningful partnerships, we hope to encourage other researchers that patient-oriented research is necessary for the future of mental health research and foundational science.


2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (S1) ◽  
pp. S523-S523
Author(s):  
S. Vladimirova ◽  
V. Lebedeva ◽  
E. Gutkevich ◽  
A. Semke ◽  
N. Bokhan ◽  
...  

In recent decades, new medications have been developed that entailed possibility of rehabilitation and socialization of mentally ill persons.PurposeTo consider a phenomenon of destigmatization of mentally ill persons on the example of the analysis of screening-questioning in mental health service.MethodsRandomized screening-questioning of participants of Open Doors Day in the clinics of Mental Health Research Institute (Tomsk, Russia) in connection with World Mental Health Day in October, 2015.ResultsOne hundred and forty-six residents of Tomsk and inhabitants of the Tomsk Region as well as other cities visited Mental Health Research Institute. 76,5% of them visited mental health service for the first time. More than a half of visitors (51%) was the most able-bodied age group – 20-50 years old; elderly people – 20%. According to many-year observation of authors of the work, there is a gradual destigmatization of people with mental health problems. Process of destigmatization will develop further, and mass media should also be engaged in it. One more moment should be emphasized – reduction of self-stigmatization. Though people do not still aim to seek for psychiatric help at the appropriate institutions (they prefer to visit the psychiatrist of the catchment area policlinic), they after all started recognizing presence of the problem, understanding the need of its overcoming, and possibility of its correction.ConclusionThe attitude of society towards people with mental health problems and towards psychiatry reasonably changes, and this promotes further development in the field of help to patients and their relatives.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.


Author(s):  
Michelle Banfield ◽  
Amelia Gulliver ◽  
Alyssa R. Morse

People with lived experience of mental health problems as both consumers and carers can bring significant expertise to the research process. However, the methods used to gather this information and their subsequent results can vary markedly. This paper describes the methods for two virtual World Cafés held to gather data on consumer and carer priorities for mental health research. Several methodological processes and challenges arose during data collection, including the achieved recruitment for each group (n = 4, n = 7) falling significantly short of the target number of 20 participants per group. This led to departures from planned methods (i.e., the use of a single ‘room’, rather than multiple breakout rooms). Despite this, the participants in the virtual World Cafés were able to generate over 200 ideas for research priorities, but not identify agreed-upon priorities. Virtual World Cafés can quickly generate a significant volume of data; however, they may not be as effective at generating consensus.


Author(s):  
Malene Broch Clemmensen ◽  
Simo Køppe

The increasing prevalence of mental disorders together with the uncertain validity of psychopathological diagnostics challenges psychiatry as the primary home of studying, diagnosing and treating mental health problems and developing mental healthcare. This marks an emerging paradigmatical shift towards ‘alternative’ mental health perspectives. With the ambition of attending authoritatively in definitory practices, contemporary scholars of psychology, sociology, anthropology and philosophy call for an interdisciplinary approach to mental health, with a predominant focus on the subject. We argue that a paradigmatical shift of mental health requires structural–historical considerations of the foundations upon which subjectivity has been and still is manifested through psychiatry. On this basis, we critically investigate fluctuating psychiatric discourses on subjectivity, normality and pathology. We conducted a genealogical analysis of 13 psychiatric sources (1938–2017) focusing on ‘Psychopathy’ as a fluctuating diagnosis. We elucidate how subject concepts in psychiatry develop in parallel to subject concepts in society and culture, exemplified through convincing similarities between psychopathic symptoms and neoliberal ideals. Considerations like these, offer scholars valuable bases for mental health research and debate, and also valuable insights to healthcare professionals.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (5) ◽  
pp. 459-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Callaghan ◽  
Anthony David ◽  
Shon Lewis ◽  
Max Marshall ◽  
George Szmukler ◽  
...  

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Conway

For over a century, research on psychopathology has focused on categorical diagnoses. Although this work has produced major discoveries, growing evidence points to the superiority of a dimensional approach to the science of mental illness. Here we outline one such dimensional system—the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP)—that is based on empirical patterns of psychological symptom co-occurrence. We highlight key ways in which this framework can advance mental health research, and we provide a heuristic for using HiTOP to test theories of psychopathology. We then review emerging evidence that supports the value of a hierarchical, dimensional model of mental illness across diverse research areas in psychological science. These new data suggest that the HiTOP system has the potential to reform the study of mental health problems and to accelerate efforts to assess, prevent, and treat mental illness effectively.


2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 82-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Bithell

SummaryPsychiatry receives less media coverage than general medicine, and the coverage it does receive is four times as likely to be negatively framed. In addition, coverage of mental health problems is often negative in tone and mental health research tends to be underrepresented in the media. As the media is likely to be a key source of information for the general public about mental health and psychiatry, this is worrying. There are opportunities, however, to change this landscape; the UK national news media are keen to cover more stories about mental health problems and to feature more psychiatrists' comments in their coverage. By engaging with the media, psychiatrists have the chance to create better-informed media narrative.


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-11
Author(s):  
Pratik Khanal ◽  
Sajana Maharjan

People with mental health problems are considered as vulnerable population by national ethical guidelines of health research in Nepal. There are different ethical challenges in research involving people with mental health problems. Ethical challenges are related to study design, autonomy, beneficence and nonmaleficence, justice, respect for the environment and consent taking process. Respecting the human rights of those with mental health problems is necessary during research and this requires research stakeholders to be responsible.


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