Puerperal Mental Illness, Clinical Features and Classification: A Study of 142 Mother-and-Baby Admissions

1985 ◽  
Vol 147 (6) ◽  
pp. 647-654 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. S. Meitzer ◽  
R. Kumar

The case notes were studied of 142 mothers admitted to psychiatric hospitals in the south-east Thames region within 12 months of childbirth during the years 1979 and 1980. Only 6% of the sample were categorised as schizophrenics by RDC criteria, whereas affective disorders were found to predominate in 80%. Manic and schizo-affective illnesses almost always began within two weeks of parturition, as did psychotic depressions. A third of the patient sample had suffered relatively minor disorders, and given adequate resources, some might have been better managed in the community. A parallel investigation of diagnostic returns to the Department of Health revealed considerable uncertainty about how to classify puerperal mental illnesses in accordance with ICD-9. There is an urgent need to improve the system for categorising and registering mental illnesses related to childbirth. Until this is achieved, research into aetiology, outcome, and the provision of services will continue to be impeded.

Author(s):  
Tom Burns ◽  
Mike Firn

Mental illness is both a cause and sometimes a consequence of homelessness. The prevalence of mental illness in the homeless is greater than for the population as a whole. The chapter considers the evidence for whether the closure of long-stay psychiatric hospitals has added to the problem, and to what extent other factors are at play. Types of social housing and residential support are presented together with the legal framework for entitlement to housing. Programmes aimed at people with long-term homelessness and severe mental illnesses, such as Housing First, are presented with evidence for effectiveness.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Lauren A. Diefenderfer ◽  
Courtney Iuppa ◽  
Carrie Kriz ◽  
Leigh Anne Nelson

Abstract Introduction People with mental illness continue to face stigma, despite these illnesses being common. Previous studies have demonstrated reduced stigma in pharmacy students after various exposures and education, although results have been mixed. The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of an advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE) in psychiatric pharmacy on students' stigma toward patients with mental illness using the Opening Minds Stigma Scale for Healthcare Providers (OMS-HC) at 2 psychiatric hospitals. Methods This was a prospective, multicenter survey study of pharmacy students on an APPE rotation at an inpatient psychiatric hospital conducted during 3 academic years. Prior to starting and upon completion of their rotation, participants completed the OMS-HC and provided demographic and rotation information. Results A total of 26 students participated in the prerotation survey, with 88.5% (n = 23) completing the postrotation survey. The primary outcome showed a significant decrease in total OMS-HC score (Z = −2.376, P = .017), indicating a decreased level of stigma at rotation completion. Analysis of the OMS-HC subscales for attitudes toward people with mental illness and attitudes toward self-disclosure of a mental illness also yielded significant decreases (Z = −2.425, P = .015; Z = −2.462, P = .014, respectively). Discussion This study showed that APPE rotations at inpatient psychiatric hospitals may help reduce stigma among pharmacy students. Pharmacy schools should consider increasing access to and encouraging completion of psychiatric pharmacy rotations to help reduce stigma prior to graduation.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Rebecca Wallace

<p>Youth suicide and self-harm are major public health concerns worldwide. The high rate of youth suicide and intentional self-harm in New Zealand, illustrates that there is a large amount of youth experiencing severe mental illness, as mental illness corresponds to suicidal/harmful behavior. Although more youth are seeking and receiving help, a large portion who are suffering are unwilling to engage in services, due to stigma surrounding mental health. Characteristics of the built environment can effect wellbeing and therefore architecture holds significant implications for the mental health of individuals.  Inpatient environments are an effective intervention for the treatment of a range of severe mental illnesses, however there is a definitive lack of acute inpatient facilities for youth in New Zealand. A shift in the way mental healthcare services are provided has meant that large psychiatric hospitals have been closed or downsized and compulsory inpatient treatment has given way to voluntary engagement with community mental health services. This has not eliminated the need for inpatient care and there still remains a need for these highly specialized environments. These current specialized environments are generally not designed to benefit the mental health and wellbeing of patients, but are just regarded as settings in which recovery takes place.  This thesis aims to explore how architecture can act therapeutically to support the wellbeing of individuals suffering mental illness. It looks at how architecture can retain the dignity of these patients, and challenge conventional norms of prior mental healthcare environments. This thesis aims to integrate Maori and Pacific models of health and wellbeing in order to allow improved care and treatment for Maori and Pacific groups. It responds to the lack and unsuccessful architectural responses for youth in New Zealand and in particular, the central region and aims to design a new mental health inpatient and outpatient facility specifically for youth suffering mental illness.</p>


2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Castle

SummaryMental health services in the state of Victoria, Australia, have undergone enormous change over the past 15 years, with the closure of all stand-alone psychiatric hospitals and a shift of resources and services into the community. Although successful overall, various areas cause concern, including pressure on acute beds, a paucity of alternative residential options, and suboptimal integration of government and non-government agencies concerned with the care of people with mental illnesses. Certain groups, notably those with complex symptom sets such as substance use and mental illness, intellectual disability and forensic problems, remain poorly catered for by the system. Finally, community stigma and lack of work inclusion for mentally ill individuals are ongoing challenges.


1995 ◽  
Vol 166 (S27) ◽  
pp. 60-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Lloyd ◽  
Rachel Jenkins

Background. Most mental illness is treated in primary and not secondary care settings, with depression and anxiety the commonest conditions encountered.Method. The paper describes on-going Department of Health initiatives to optimise the primary care of common mental illnesses such as depression.Discussion. Primary care attenders with depression are often higher consumers of general health care than non-depressed attenders. Further data will become available soon from these ongoing studies to inform the debate on the optimal use of available resources in primary care. There is a particular need to evaluate non-pharmacological interventions in primary care.


Impact ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (6) ◽  
pp. 48-49
Author(s):  
Minori Utsunomiya

Early traditional mental health policies in Japan did not protect the rights of patients with mental illnesses, with public safety prioritised over human rights. The situation has since improved, but these early perceptions have impacted on current mental health policies in Japan. Dr Minori Utsunomiya, Aichi Prefectural University, Japan, believes past policies are the root of many challenges facing people with mental illness and she is exploring Japan's complex history of mental health and psychiatric care to shed light on the correlation between past and present mental health policies. Key foci for Utsunomiya are the Psychiatric Custody Law of 1900, the Psychiatric Hospital Law of 1919 and the Mental Health Act of 1950 and she is exploring these laws from two perspectives: pre-World War II to post-war continuity/discontinuity and the structure of acceptance and exclusion for people with mental illnesses. As such, Utsunomiya embarked on an exploration of the process of the revision and abolition of laws and deliberation with respect to bills related to mental illness, investigated the roles and functions of public psychiatric hospitals and analysed the causal relationship between the revision of laws related to mental illness and social incident.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Rebecca Wallace

<p>Youth suicide and self-harm are major public health concerns worldwide. The high rate of youth suicide and intentional self-harm in New Zealand, illustrates that there is a large amount of youth experiencing severe mental illness, as mental illness corresponds to suicidal/harmful behavior. Although more youth are seeking and receiving help, a large portion who are suffering are unwilling to engage in services, due to stigma surrounding mental health. Characteristics of the built environment can effect wellbeing and therefore architecture holds significant implications for the mental health of individuals.  Inpatient environments are an effective intervention for the treatment of a range of severe mental illnesses, however there is a definitive lack of acute inpatient facilities for youth in New Zealand. A shift in the way mental healthcare services are provided has meant that large psychiatric hospitals have been closed or downsized and compulsory inpatient treatment has given way to voluntary engagement with community mental health services. This has not eliminated the need for inpatient care and there still remains a need for these highly specialized environments. These current specialized environments are generally not designed to benefit the mental health and wellbeing of patients, but are just regarded as settings in which recovery takes place.  This thesis aims to explore how architecture can act therapeutically to support the wellbeing of individuals suffering mental illness. It looks at how architecture can retain the dignity of these patients, and challenge conventional norms of prior mental healthcare environments. This thesis aims to integrate Maori and Pacific models of health and wellbeing in order to allow improved care and treatment for Maori and Pacific groups. It responds to the lack and unsuccessful architectural responses for youth in New Zealand and in particular, the central region and aims to design a new mental health inpatient and outpatient facility specifically for youth suffering mental illness.</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 373 (1744) ◽  
pp. 20170168 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Sulis

Temperament of healthy people and mental illnesses, particularly affective disorders, have been conjectured to lie along a continuum of neurobehavioural regulation. Understanding the nature of this continuum may better inform the construction of taxonomies for both categories of behaviour. Both temperament and mental illness refer to patterns of behaviour that manifest over long time scales (weeks to years) and they appear to share many underlying neuroregulatory systems. This continuum is discussed from the perspectives of nonlinear dynamical systems theory, neurobiology and psychiatry as applied to understanding such multiscale time-series behaviour. Particular emphasis is given to issues of generativity, fungibility, metastability, non-stationarity and contextuality. Implications of these dynamical properties for the development of taxonomies will be discussed. Problems with the over-reliance of psychologists on statistical and mathematical methods in deriving their taxonomies (particularly those based on factor analysis) will be discussed from a dynamical perspective. An alternative approach to temperament based upon functionality, and its discriminative capabilities in mental illness, is presented. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Diverse perspectives on diversity: multi-disciplinary approaches to taxonomies of individual differences’.


Somatechnics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 291-309
Author(s):  
Francis Russell

This paper looks to make a contribution to the critical project of psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff, by elucidating her account of ‘drug-centred’ psychiatry, and its relation to critical and cultural theory. Moncrieff's ‘drug-centred’ approach to psychiatry challenges the dominant view of mental illness, and psychopharmacology, as necessitating a strictly biological ontology. Against the mainstream view that mental illnesses have biological causes, and that medications like ‘anti-depressants’ target specific biological abnormalities, Moncrieff looks to connect pharmacotherapy for mental illness to human experience, and to issues of social justice and emancipation. However, Moncrieff's project is complicated by her framing of psychopharmacological politics in classical Marxist notions of ideology and false consciousness. Accordingly, she articulates a political project that would open up psychiatry to the subjugated knowledge of mental health sufferers, whilst also characterising those sufferers as beholden to ideology, and as being effectively without knowledge. Accordingly, in order to contribute to Moncrieff's project, and to help introduce her work to a broader humanities readership, this paper elucidates her account of ‘drug-centred psychiatry’, whilst also connecting her critique of biopsychiatry to notions of biologism, biopolitics, and bio-citizenship. This is done in order to re-describe the subject of mental health discourse, so as to better reveal their capacities and agency. As a result, this paper contends that, once reframed, Moncrieff's work helps us to see value in attending to human experience when considering pharmacotherapy for mental illness.


Author(s):  
Suresh Lukose ◽  
Abdul Azeez E.P.

Nurses are identified as one of the professional groups with high level of job related stress and related issues. The magnitude of the problem this segment faces is very intensive as a large number of them are women. They are victimized for multiple roles in the home and hospital. Stressors for nurses are always been identified with workload, dual role and pressures which are associated with demands of the existing working environment. The nature of illness/diseases a nurse dealing with has significant effects on the stress and mental health level. Healthcare professionals dealing with psychiatric illness and other chronic/traumatic conditions faces more stress while comparing to the other domains of healthcare. The present study is a cross sectional hospital based study carried out at four centres and 100 samples were collected by judgmental sampling method which consisted of 50 female nursing staff from general hospital and same number from psychiatric hospitals. A socio-demographic data sheet along with General Health Questionnaire was administered and those who have satisfactory health have been considered as further samples. Mental health, stress level, and attitude towards mental illness were analyzed. The results shows that psychiatric nursing staff scored higher in overall occupational stress index and in the subs-domains of role overload, role ambiguity, role conflict, role unreasonable group and political pressure compared to general nursing staff. Also the mental health inventory total score is negatively correlated with role overload sub-domain of occupational stress index scale. Present study implicates the need of comprehensive psycho-social management plans for the professionals working in psychiatric hospitals.


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