scholarly journals Mental health and integration in Asia Pacific

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 76-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chee H. Ng

This brief report examines the extent to which community-based treatment and integration support are provided for people living with mental illness across 15 selected Asia-Pacific economies. Some of the key findings are discussed in light of the diversity of economies and cultural contexts.

BMJ Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. e040610
Author(s):  
Renée O'Donnell ◽  
Melissa Savaglio ◽  
Debra Fast ◽  
Ash Vincent ◽  
Dave Vicary ◽  
...  

IntroductionPeople with serious mental illness (SMI) often fail to receive adequate treatment. To provide a higher level of support, mental health systems have been reformed substantially to integrate mental healthcare into the community. MyCare is one such community-based mental health model of care. This paper describes the study protocol of a controlled trial examining the effect of MyCare on psychosocial and clinical outcomes and hospital admission and duration rates for adults with SMI.Methods and analysisThis is a multisite non-randomised controlled trial with a 3, 6 and 12-month follow-up period. The study participants will be adults (18–64 years of age) with SMI recruited from Hobart, Launceston and the North-West of Tasmania. The treatment group will include adults who receive both the MyCare intervention and standard mental health support; the control group will include adults who receive only standard mental health support. The primary outcome includes psychosocial and clinical functioning and the secondary outcome will examine hospital admission rates and duration of stay. Mixed-effects models will be used to examine outcome improvements between intake and follow-up. This trial will generate the evidence needed to evaluate the effect of a community mental health support programme delivered in Tasmania, Australia. If MyCare results in sustained positive outcomes for adults with SMI, it could potentially be scaled up more broadly across Australia, addressing the inequity and lack of comprehensive treatment that many individuals with SMI experience.Ethics and disseminationThis study has been approved by the Tasmanian Health and Medical Human Research Ethics Committee. The findings will be disseminated to participants and staff who delivered the intervention, submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal and shared at academic conferences.Trial registration numberACTRN12620000673943.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeannemarie Baker ◽  
Jasmine L. Travers ◽  
Penelope Buschman ◽  
Jacqueline A. Merrill

BACKGROUND: Access to mental health care is a struggle for those with serious mental illness (SMI). About 25% of homeless suffer from SMI, compared with 4.2% of the general population. OBJECTIVE: From 2003 to 2012, St. Paul’s Center (SPC) operated a unique model to provide quality care to the homeless and those at risk for homelessness, incarceration, and unnecessary hospitalization because of SMI. Data were available for analysis for the years 2008 to 2010. DESIGN: The SPC was developed, managed, and staffed by board-certified psychiatric/mental health nurse practitioners, offering comprehensive mental health services and coordinated interventions. RESULTS: All clients were housed and none incarcerated. From 2008 to 2010, only 3% of clients were hospitalized, compared with 7.5% of adults with SMI. Clinical, academic, and community partnerships increased value, but Medicaid reimbursement was not available. CONCLUSION: Mental health provisions in the recently passed 21st Century Cures Act support community mental health specialty treatment. The SPC provides a template for similar nurse practitioner–led models.


Author(s):  
Diane E. Goldstein

In chapter 7, “Deranged Psychopaths and Victims Who Go Insane: Visibility and Invisibility in the Depiction of Mental Health and Illness in Contemporary Legend,” Diane E. Goldstein analyzes the portrayal of mental illness in contemporary legends, focusing on the values inherent in depictions of demented killers, quietly “mad” neighbors, and psychologically damaged victims. Taken as a group and read as parallel texts, Goldstein argues that these narratives construct and present a complex of images of mental health and illness set in changing historical and cultural contexts. Together, she asserts, the narratives create explanatory categories for mental illness and convey popular understandings of “madness”; they equate insanity with visibility of difference; they explore the gendered associations of male aggression and female passivity, and they pinpoint areas of socially tolerable and intolerable deviance.


1993 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 110-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
On Lien

There are approximately 155,000 Vietnamese born people in Australia, with 46,000 in Victoria. The majority came to Australia as refugees. Many were subjected to the reality or threat of war, persecution, imprisonment, discrimination, economic deprivation, violence, the loss of family or other major stressors. These stressors have included the hazards of the escape, lengthy stays in refugee camps and, on arrival in Australia, lack of familiarity with English and with the culture. The Vietnamese Community in Australia was expected to have a high prevalence of mental illness, especially when newly arrived from refugee camps. In a study published in 1986 as “The Price of Freedom” [1] 32% of the young Vietnamese adult group was found to suffer from psychiatric disorder. At follow-up two years later, the prevalence of psychiatric disorder, without any major intervention, had dropped to 5–6%, a prevalence lower than that in the Australian-born community. In addition, the Vietnamese community's use of mental health services (inpatient and community-based) is lower than that of any other ethnic group.


Healthcare ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 1181
Author(s):  
Mi Kyung Seo ◽  
Min Hwa Lee

Aims: The purpose of this study was to verify how integration into the mental health community, a subculture of persons with mental illness, affects the integration into the non-mental health community. Thus, we analyzed the effect of community-based mental health service programs on non-mental health community integration, mediated by mental health community integration. Methods: In total, 190 persons with mental illness (M age = 42.78; SD = 11.3; male, 54.7%; female, 45.3%), living in local communities and using community-based mental health programs, participated in the study. We measured their sociodemographic and clinical variables, the environmental variables of mental health service programs, and the level of integration of the mental health and non-mental health communities. The data collected were analyzed to test the proposed hypotheses using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Results: The common significant predictors affecting the two types of community integration were symptoms and resource accessibility: the more accessible the various community resources and the less severe the psychiatric symptoms were, the higher the level of the two types of community integration was. In path analysis, the program’s atmosphere and the participation of people with mental illness (program involvement) significantly predicted the level of integration into the mental health community. This, in turn, had a positive effect on their physical integration, social contact frequency, and psychological integration into the non-mental health community, mediated by the integration of the mental health community. Conclusion: Based on the results, we emphasize the importance of mental health communities and suggest strategies to support the integration of mental health communities.


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 86-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Agrest ◽  
Franco Mascayano ◽  
Sara Elena Ardila-Gómez ◽  
Ariel Abeldaño ◽  
Ruth Fernandez ◽  
...  

Studies regarding stigma towards mental illness in Argentina blossomed after the first National Mental Health Law was passed in 2010. Methodological limitations and contradictory results regarding community perceptions of stigma hinder comparisons across domestic and international contexts but some lessons may still be gleaned. We examine this research and derive recommendations for future research and actions to reduce stigma. These include tackling culture-specific aspects of stigma, increasing education of the general population, making more community-based services available and exposing mental health professionals to people with mental illness who are on community paths to recovery.


2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 184-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alaina C. Zanin ◽  
Cameron W. Piercy

Using a lens of structuration theory, this study highlights the ways that specific structures within the current community-based model of mental health care might enable and constrain individuals and families living with mental illness. Through a case study of a volunteer mental illness advocacy group, the authors employed a duality analysis on a variety of data collected from the case (i.e., interviews, organizational documents, and community health care data). Findings indicate that while group members encountered structural barriers to their organizational mission, they also used communicative agency creatively and collectively to (re)create structures within the current community-based model of mental health care. Member agency is examined in relation to perceived structural influence. Theoretical and practical applications of the findings are discussed.


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