scholarly journals Paramedics’ clinical judgment and mental health assessments in emergency contexts: Research, practice, and tools of the trade

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramon Shaban

Mental health and illness are global health priorities. International reforms of mental health care systems repeatedly call for increased participation of a wide range of health, welfare, and disability professionals and organisations in providing services to people with mental disorders. There are increasing needs to improve mental health skills of all health-care professionals, improve coordination of services provided to consumers of mental health services and their and carers, and foster greater community interest and involvement in mental health issues. Despite this, the roles of paramedics and contributions they can make to the care of the mentally ill in the wider continuum of health care have not been fully recognised. Traditionally, the work of paramedics has been limited to managing specific conditions such as suicide. The reasons for this are many and varied, but one consequence of it is that research into paramedic judgment and decision-making of mental illness is rare. This paper will present a review of key research examining mental health assessments in the emergency care context, with a specific focus on paramedics. It will examine the use of mental assessment tools or instruments by ambulance and emergency medical personnel and highlight the needs for future research into this important area of health-care. Central to global mental health reforms is the preparedness of health care professionals, including paramedics, to recognise, assess, and manage mental illness in everyday practice and the sufficiency of education and training programs, clinical standards, policy, and legislation to ensure quality and accountability in the care of the mentally ill.

2021 ◽  
pp. 002076402199006
Author(s):  
Sailaxmi - Gandhi ◽  
Sangeetha Jayaraman ◽  
Thanapal Sivakumar ◽  
Annie P John ◽  
Anoop Joseph ◽  
...  

Background: Clientele’s attitude toward Persons with Mental Illness (PwMI) changes over a period of time. The aim of this study was to explore and understand how and whether perception about PwMI changes when they are seen working like persons without mental illness among those availing services of ROSes café at NIMHANS, Bengaluru. Methods: The descriptive research design was adopted with purposive sampling. Community Attitude toward Mentally Ill (CAMI) a self -administered questionnaire of was administered to measure the clientele attitude towards staff with mental illness in ROSes Café (Recovery Oriented Services). A total of 256 subjects availing services from the ROSes café recruited in the study. Chi-square and Mann–Whitney U test was computed to see the association and differences on selected variables. Results: The present study results showed that subjects had a positive attitude seen in health care professionals in the domains of benevolence (BE) (28.68 ± 3.00) and community mental health ideology (CMHI) (31.53 ± 3.19), whereas non-health care professionals had showed negative attitude in the domain of authoritarianism (AU) (30.54 ± 3.42) and social restrictiveness (SR) (30.18 ± 3.05). Education, employment, marital, income, and working status were significantly associated with CAMI domains. Conclusion: PwMI also can work like people without mental illness when the opportunities are provided. The community needs to regard mental illness in the same manner as chronic physical illness diabetes mellitus and allow PwMI to live a life of dignity by creating and offering opportunities to earn livelihood which would help them recover with their illnesses.


1993 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 82-83
Author(s):  
John Barnes ◽  
Greg Wilkinson

Much of the medical care of the long-term mentally ill falls to the general practitioner (Wilkinson et al, 1985) and, for example, a survey in Buckinghamshire showed that these patients consult their general practitioner (GP) twice as often as mental health services. Lodging house dwellers are known to show an increased prevalence of major mental illness and to suffer much secondary social handicap, presenting a challenge to helping services of all disciplines. For this reason we chose a lodging house in which to explore further the relationships between mental illness and residents' present contact with their GP, mental health services and other local sources of help.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reham A Hameed Shalaby ◽  
Vincent I O Agyapong

BACKGROUND A growing gap has emerged between people with mental illness and health care professionals, which in recent years has been successfully closed through the adoption of peer support services (PSSs). Peer support in mental health has been variously defined in the literature and is simply known as the help and support that people with lived experience of mental illness or a learning disability can give to one another. Although PSSs date back to several centuries, it is only in the last few decades that these services have formally evolved, grown, and become an integral part of the health care system. Debates around peer support in mental health have been raised frequently in the literature. Although many authors have emphasized the utmost importance of incorporating peer support into the health care system to instill hope; to improve engagement, quality of life, self-confidence, and integrity; and to reduce the burden on the health care system, other studies suggest that there are neutral effects from integrating PSSs into health care systems, with a probable waste of resources. OBJECTIVE In this general review, we aimed to examine the literature, exploring the evolution, growth, types, function, generating tools, evaluation, challenges, and the effect of PSSs in the field of mental health and addiction. In addition, we aimed to describe PSSs in different, nonexhaustive contexts, as shown in the literature, that aims to draw attention to the proposed values of PSSs in such fields. METHODS The review was conducted through a general search of the literature on MEDLINE, Google Scholar, EMBASE, Scopus, Chemical Abstracts, and PsycINFO. Search terms included peer support, peer support in mental health, social support, peer, family support, and integrated care. RESULTS There is abundant literature defining and describing PSSs in different contexts as well as tracking their origins. Two main transformational concepts have been described, namely, intentional peer support and transformation from patients to peer support providers. The effects of PSSs are extensive and integrated into different fields, such as forensic PSSs, addiction, and mental health, and in different age groups and mental health condition severity. Satisfaction of and challenges to PSS integration have been clearly dependent on a number of factors and consequently impact the future prospect of this workforce. CONCLUSIONS There is an internationally growing trend to adopt PSSs within addiction and mental health services, and despite the ongoing challenges, large sections of the current literature support the inclusion of peer support workers in the mental health care workforce. The feasibility and maintenance of a robust PSS in health care would only be possible through collaborative efforts and ongoing support and engagement from all health care practitioners, managers, and other stakeholders.


10.2196/15572 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. e15572 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reham A Hameed Shalaby ◽  
Vincent I O Agyapong

Background A growing gap has emerged between people with mental illness and health care professionals, which in recent years has been successfully closed through the adoption of peer support services (PSSs). Peer support in mental health has been variously defined in the literature and is simply known as the help and support that people with lived experience of mental illness or a learning disability can give to one another. Although PSSs date back to several centuries, it is only in the last few decades that these services have formally evolved, grown, and become an integral part of the health care system. Debates around peer support in mental health have been raised frequently in the literature. Although many authors have emphasized the utmost importance of incorporating peer support into the health care system to instill hope; to improve engagement, quality of life, self-confidence, and integrity; and to reduce the burden on the health care system, other studies suggest that there are neutral effects from integrating PSSs into health care systems, with a probable waste of resources. Objective In this general review, we aimed to examine the literature, exploring the evolution, growth, types, function, generating tools, evaluation, challenges, and the effect of PSSs in the field of mental health and addiction. In addition, we aimed to describe PSSs in different, nonexhaustive contexts, as shown in the literature, that aims to draw attention to the proposed values of PSSs in such fields. Methods The review was conducted through a general search of the literature on MEDLINE, Google Scholar, EMBASE, Scopus, Chemical Abstracts, and PsycINFO. Search terms included peer support, peer support in mental health, social support, peer, family support, and integrated care. Results There is abundant literature defining and describing PSSs in different contexts as well as tracking their origins. Two main transformational concepts have been described, namely, intentional peer support and transformation from patients to peer support providers. The effects of PSSs are extensive and integrated into different fields, such as forensic PSSs, addiction, and mental health, and in different age groups and mental health condition severity. Satisfaction of and challenges to PSS integration have been clearly dependent on a number of factors and consequently impact the future prospect of this workforce. Conclusions There is an internationally growing trend to adopt PSSs within addiction and mental health services, and despite the ongoing challenges, large sections of the current literature support the inclusion of peer support workers in the mental health care workforce. The feasibility and maintenance of a robust PSS in health care would only be possible through collaborative efforts and ongoing support and engagement from all health care practitioners, managers, and other stakeholders.


Author(s):  
Martin Summers

The conclusion provides a summation of the book’s main arguments and offers suggestions for further research in the history of African American mental health. It reasserts the two central theses. First, Saint Elizabeths’ psychiatrists’ construction and reaffirmation of the white psyche as the norm produced a great deal of ambiguity regarding the nature of black insanity. This contributed to the prioritizing of the white sufferer of mental illness and the marginalization of mentally ill blacks. Second, African American patients and their communities exercised agency in their interactions with Saint Elizabeths, both to shape the therapeutic experience and to assert their status as citizens. This latter argument suggests that the orthodox view that African Americans have generally had an indifferent or antagonistic relationship to psychiatry needs to be rethought, which will require further historical scholarship, particularly with respect to African American activism within the realm of mental health care.


Author(s):  
Sarada Menon ◽  
Jayakumar Menon ◽  
P. Poornachandrika

According to the Oxford dictionary “Institution” is an important public body, a home providing care for people with special needs and ‘institutionalise’ is placing such persons in a residential institution. In the context of the topic being discussed, institution is a home for persons with special needs and similarly institutionalisation is placing the persons with serious mental illness, whether acute, subacute or chronic. Deinstitutionalisation is increasingly being projected as the most needed reform in the mental health care by many experts in our country, but the implications of this merit’s critical evaluation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (01) ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Sarada Menon1 ◽  
Jayakumar Menon ◽  
P. Poornachandrika

According to the Oxford dictionary “Institution” is an important public body, a home providing care for people with special needs and ‘institutionalise’ is placing such persons in a residential institution. In the context of the topic being discussed, institution is a home for persons with special needs and similarly institutionalisation is placing the persons with serious mental illness, whether acute, subacute or chronic. Deinstitutionalisation is increasingly being projected as the most needed reform in the mental health care by many experts in our country, but the implications of this merit’s critical evaluation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Lamarre ◽  
Lily Gozlan ◽  
Eric Billon

For the last four years the Institut de Pleine Conscience Appliquée de Montréal (IPCAM) and the Department of Psychiatry of the St. Mary Hospital Center, an affiliated McGill Community Hospital, have been offering a weekly 140 minutes session to mentally ill patients in remission. The sessions are held outside the hospital in the institute.The objectives of the authors are:1.     To empower the Health Care Professionals (HCP) and the Expert in Mindfulness (EIM) to start such a co-op group for patients who otherwise might feel unable to discuss their mental health problems while trying to integrate mindfulness practice.2.     To describe the outlines of such a group, such as the referral forms, the expected goals for attendance, the meditation exercises and some particular aspects of the sharing periods.3.     To propose to the HCP and the EIM some practical tips in order to orient the patients in healthy habits of acceptance of themselves rather than maintaining themselves in maladaptive thoughts, emotions and behaviours. As we all know people who have had a difficult childhood could use mindfulness inadvertently for avoidance rather than acceptance.4.         Finally to share with the HCP and the EIM the enriching experience of such a co-op group for the leaders as much as for the participants.


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