scholarly journals Responsibility inoculation: Constructing ‘good parent’ accounts when accessing child mental health services

2021 ◽  
pp. 263440412199996
Author(s):  
Michelle O’Reilly ◽  
Nikki Kiyimba

With the prevalence of child mental health conditions rising, the role of the initial mental health assessment is crucial in determining need. Utilising a critical discursive analytic framework, we explored the ways in which parents during these mental health assessments constructed the child’s difficulties as medicalised and doctorable as opposed to systemic and familial. Through this discursive positioning, we examined the ways in which parents mitigated blame and accounted for the child’s behaviours and emotions. Parents engaged in three accounting practices to construct the child’s problems as dispositional and to mitigate against an alternative familial system interpretation. First, they drew upon normative cultural repertoires of parenting. Second, they mediated ways whereby normative practices were deviated from in the best interest of the child. Third, they rhetorically positioned overcoming systemic difficulties by illustrating cooperative parenting in separated families. Our findings have implications for how parents build a case for the need for medical intervention in assessment settings.

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Hutchby ◽  
Michelle O’Reilly ◽  
Alison Drewett ◽  
Victoria Stafford

Based on a corpus of child mental health assessment meetings, this article explores how practitioners use reports on their own cognitive processing, such as I was just thinking or I’m just wondering, in interaction with children and adolescents presenting with potential mental health issues. Using the methods of conversation analysis, the findings reveal different ways in which this device is used to encourage the child to engage with a particular topic, interpretation, or version of events from the standpoint of subjective experience; in other words, to produce feelings-talk. The analysis contributes further towards the understanding of child–adult interaction in professional arenas of action: in this case child mental health assessments.


Author(s):  
A. Jeffers ◽  
R. Jennings ◽  
J. O’Mahony

Objectives To audit compliance of mental health assessment rooms in Irish adult emergency departments (EDs) which are open 24 hours on 7 days a week with standards identified by the Psychiatric Liaison Accreditation Network (PLAN). Methods A self-audit tool was sent via email to Clinical Nurse Specialists and Consultant Psychiatrists in Ireland’s 26 Adult EDs that are open 24 hours on seven days a week. Results were collated and are presented ensuring anonymity. Results A response rate of 100% was achieved. Full or substantial compliance with PLAN standards was recorded in 73% of services. In seven services, the rooms used for mental health assessments were unsuitable when measured against the PLAN standards. A number of services identified the presence of ligature points within the rooms. Conclusion The Health Service Executive (HSE) National Clinical Programme for the Assessment and Management of patients presenting to the ED following self-harm is committed to achieving 100% compliance with PLAN standards in all services. Recommendations include introducing formal ligature risk assessments and risk assessments of the use of the assessment rooms. The Chief Executive Officers of all hospital groups were informed of the results of the audits and advised on recommendations for each hospital ED.


Author(s):  
S Healy ◽  
K Mabilangan ◽  
T Fantaneanu ◽  
S Whiting

Background: When compared to the general population, researchers have reported elevated rates of mental health issues in the pediatric epilepsy population. These issues have been found to be especially problematic around the time of transition from pediatric to adult care. This is significant because depression and/or anxiety have been found to be directly related to worsened seizure outcomes and quality of life. Despite this, no known Canadian pediatric epilepsy centers have integrated mental health assessment into mainstream practice. Methods: To explore the importance of mental health assessments, we looked at the prevalence rates of both depression and anxiety in 91 adolescents with epilepsy aged 14 to 18 (M=16.3, 51 males, 41 females) enrolled into an epilepsy transition clinic. Results: 58.3% of adolescents showed signs of depression (28.6% mild, 21.4% moderate, 6.0% moderately-severe, 2.4% severe), and 51.8% of adolescents showed signs of anxiety (31.8% mild, 10.6% moderate, 9.4% severe). Remarkably, 54.8% of patients presenting with moderate to severe depression and/or anxiety had not been previously identified Conclusions: These results suggest that in order to ensure the best possible outcomes for patients, mental health assessments should be integrated into the standard model of care for transition-aged adolescents with epilepsy.


2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rowella C. W. M. Kuijpers ◽  
Roy Otten ◽  
Ad A. Vermulst ◽  
Rutger C. M. E. Engels

Both clinicians and researchers agree on the value of self-report in child mental health assessment. The pictorial format of the computerized Dominic Interactive is an addition to the existing questionnaires, specifically concerning young children. Although prior studies on the Dominic Interactive reported favorable psychometric properties, the reliability was not always satisfactory for every scale, and no studies confirmed the proposed DSM-IV factor structure of the Dominic Interactive. This study examines these two psychometric aspects using a sample of 1,504 Dutch primary-school children aged 6–13 years. α was computed and compared with ω, an alternative index of reliability. CFA was conducted as was the measurement invariance at a configural, scalar, and metric level across both age and sex. The results showed that ω values were above .80, indicating good to high reliability for all scales. The DSM-IV factor structure was confirmed and proved to be identical across age groups and among both boys and girls in this sample. These findings lay the foundation for the meaningful use of the norms needed in clinical practice. They also contribute to the increasing value of the Dominic Interactive as a self-report instrument in child mental health screening.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Keke Li ◽  
Weifang Yu

College students are under increasing competition pressure, which has a negative impact on their mental health, as the pace of learning and life accelerates, as well as the increasingly difficult employment situation. As a result, emphasizing the importance of college students’ mental health and fully addressing it has become a top priority in the work of colleges and universities. However, some students and even teachers are currently unconcerned about mental illness, making it difficult for students with psychological abnormalities to receive timely detection and effective treatment. As a result, it is the responsibility of student management for colleges and universities to identify and intervene early in the mental health problems of college students. Through the use of multimodal data and neural network models, it is now possible to evaluate and predict the mental state of college students in real time, thanks to the advancement of intelligent technology. Therefore, a novel multimodal neural network model is proposed in this paper. Our model is divided into two branches in particular. The traditional mental health assessment and prediction algorithm, which is based on the improved BP neural network and the International Mental Health Scale SCL-90, is one of the branches. Given how difficult it is to meet the requirements for the accuracy of college students’ mental health assessments using this method, our other branch is computer vision-based facial emotion recognition of college students, which is used to aid in the evaluation of mental health assessments. Our model demonstrates competitive performance through simulation and comparative experiments.


Author(s):  
K. W. M. Fulford ◽  
Lu Duhig ◽  
Julie Hankin ◽  
Joanna Hicks ◽  
Justine Keeble

This chapter describes philosophical and empirical work underpinning recent developments in values-based mental health assessment culminating in the 3 Keys to a Shared Approach, a UK-based project co-produced between service users and providers. Three aspects of values-based mental health assessment are described: person-centered, multidisciplinary, or strengths-based assessment. The central role of values in person-centered assessment is shown through the story of a real (biographically disguised) person and the interpretation of his story drawing on diagnostic manuals such as the DSM. Philosophical value theory suggests that values in psychiatric diagnosis reflect the diversity of our values as unique individuals. This diversity is addressed by values-based practice. The contribution of multidisciplinary teamwork to values-based assessment is then outlined as derived from the Models Project. Finally, the 3 Keys Project is described, concluding by pointing to the wider significance of the Project for mental health practice as a whole.


BJPsych Open ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle O'Reilly ◽  
Khalid Karim ◽  
Nikki Kiyimba

BackgroundThe mental health assessment is a fundamental aspect of clinical practice and central to this is the use of questions.AimsTo investigate the frequency and type of questions utilised within a child mental health assessment.MethodThe data consisted of 28 naturally occurring assessments from a UK child and adolescent mental health service. Data were analysed using quantitative and qualitative content analysis to determine frequencies and question type.ResultsResults indicated a total of 9086 questions in 41 h across the 28 clinical encounters. This equated to a mean of 3.7 questions per minute. Four types of questions were identified; yes–no interrogatives, wh-prefaced questions, declarative questions and tag questions.ConclusionsThe current format of questioning may impede the opportunity for families to fully express their particular concerns and this has implications for service delivery and training.


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