scholarly journals An Instrument to Measure Mental Health Professionals’ Beliefs and Attitudes towards Service Users’ Rights

Author(s):  
Francisco Eiroa-Orosa ◽  
Laura Limiñana-Bravo

We aimed at developing and validating a scale on the beliefs and attitudes of mental health professionals towards services users’ rights in order to provide a valid evaluation instrument for training activities with heterogeneous mental health professional groups. Items were extracted from a review of previous instruments, as well as from several focus groups which have been conducted with different mental health stakeholders, including mental health service users. The preliminary scale consisted of 44 items and was administered to 480 mental health professionals. After eliminating non-discriminant and low weighting items, a final scale of 25 items was obtained. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses produced a four-factor solution consisting of the following four dimensions; system criticism/justifying beliefs, freedom/coercion, empowerment/paternalism, and tolerance/discrimination. The scale shows high concordance with our theoretical model as well as adequate parameters of explained variance, model fit, and internal reliability. Additional work is required to assess the cultural equivalence and psychometrics of this tool in other settings and populations, including health students.

Author(s):  
Francisco José Eiroa-Orosa ◽  
Laura Limiñana-Bravo

We aimed at developing and validating a scale on the beliefs and attitudes of mental health professionals towards services users’ rights in order to provide a valid evaluation instrument for training activities with heterogeneous mental health professional groups. Items were extracted from a review of previous instruments, as well as from several focus groups which have been conducted with different mental health stakeholders, including mental health service users. The preliminary scale consisted of 44 items and was administered to 480 mental health professionals. After eliminating non-discriminant and low weighting items, a final scale of 25 items was obtained. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses produced a four-factor solution consisting of the following four dimensions; system criticism/justifying beliefs, freedom/coercion, empowerment/paternalism, and tolerance/discrimination. The scale shows high concordance with our theoretical model as well as adequate parameters of explained variance, model fit, and internal reliability. Additional work is required to assess the cultural equivalence and psychometrics of this tool in other settings and populations, including health students.


Author(s):  
​Francisco José Eiroa-Orosa ◽  
Laura Limiñana-Bravo

We aimed at developing and validating a scale on the beliefs and attitudes of mental health professionals towards services users’ rights in order to provide a valid evaluation instrument for training activities with heterogeneous professional groups. Items were extracted from a review of previous instruments, as well as from several focus groups which have been conducted with different mental health stakeholders. The preliminary scale consisted of 44 items and was administered to 480 mental health professionals. After eliminating non-discriminant and low weighting items, a final scale of 25 items was obtained. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses produced a four-factor solution consisting of four dimensions; system criticism/justifying beliefs, freedom/coercion, empowerment/paternalism and tolerance/discrimination. The scale shows high concordance with our theoretical model as well as adequate parameters of explained variance, model fit and internal reliability.


2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-29
Author(s):  
Laura Lea ◽  
Sue Holttum ◽  
Victoria Butters ◽  
Diana Byrne ◽  
Helen Cable ◽  
...  

PurposeThe 2014/2015 UK requirement for involvement of service users and carers in training mental health professionals has prompted the authors to review the work of involvement in clinical psychology training in the university programme. Have the voices of service users and carers been heard? The paper aims to discuss this issue.Design/methodology/approachThe authors update the paper of 2011 in which the authors described the challenges of inclusion and the specific approaches the authors take to involvement. The authors do this in the context of the recent change to UK standards for service user and carer involvement, and recent developments in relation to partnership working and co-production in mental healthcare. The authors describe the work carried out by the authors – members of a service user involvement group at a UK university – to ensure the voices of people affected by mental health difficulties are included in all aspects of training.FindingsCareful work and the need for dedicated time is required to enable inclusive, effective and comprehensive participation in a mental health training programme. It is apparent that there is a group of service users whose voice is less heard: those who are training to be mental health workers.Social implicationsFor some people, involvement has increased. Trainee mental health professionals’ own experience of distress may need more recognition and valuing.Originality/valueThe authors are in a unique position to review a service-user-led project, which has run for 12 years, whose aim has been to embed involvement in training. The authors can identify both achievements and challenges.


Author(s):  
Rachel Tribe

Psychiatrists will come into contact with service users who do not use English or the language of the country to which they have migrated. The professional responsibilities of all mental health professionals carry an obligation to serve all members of our communities equitably and impartially; this will include people who have migrated and are not fluent in the language of their chosen country of migration. Working with interpreters and cultural brokers can be an enriching and informative experience for psychiatrists, which can lead to the development of new knowledge. This is in addition to the challenging of what may be taken-for-granted knowledge, as well as the development of additional skills and ways of thinking about mental health. Interpreters and cultural brokers can, in addition to translating the language, explain relevant cultural factors, which are important to the clinical work and the meaning-making of service users and gain additional perspectives.


Author(s):  
Francisco José Eiroa-Orosa ◽  
María Lomascolo ◽  
Anaïs Tosas-Fernández

Although it may seem paradoxical, primary care and mental health professionals develop prejudices and discriminatory attitudes towards people with mental health problems in a very similar way to the rest of the population. The main objective of this project was to design, implement and evaluate two awareness interventions respectively tailored to reduce stigma and discrimination beliefs and attitudes towards persons with a mental health diagnosis among primary care (PC) and mental health (MH) professionals. These interventions were developed by Obertament, the Catalan alliance against stigma and discrimination in mental health. The TLC3 (Targeted, Local, Credible, Continuous Contact) methodology was adapted to the Catalan PC and MH professional contexts. Activists with lived experience of mental health diagnosis carried out awareness-raising interventions in PC and MH health centres. The efficacy of these interventions was evaluated using two prospective double-blind cluster-wait-list-randomized-controlled trial experimental designs. Stigmatizing beliefs and behaviours were measured with the Opening Minds Stigma Scale for Health Care Providers in primary care centres and with the Beliefs and Attitudes towards Mental Health Service users’ rights in mental health centres. Positive reductions in both PC and MH professionals’ stigmatising beliefs and attitudes were found in the 1-month follow-up, although a ‘rebound effect’ at the 3-month follow up was also detected. This emphasizes the importance of the continuity of the presence of anti-stigma activities and messages. Attrition rates where high, which can hamper the reliability of the results. Further follow-up studies should enquiry effects of long-term interventions aimed at reducing stigmatising beliefs and attitudes among primary care and mental health professionals.


2001 ◽  
Vol 25 (7) ◽  
pp. 268-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanessa Pinfold ◽  
Jonathan Bindman

On the evening of 23 February 2000 at the Maudsley Hospital in London the motion ‘This house believes that compulsory community treatment is not justified’ was debated in front of an audience of mental health professionals, carers, service users and other members of the general public. Peter Campbell, a mental health system survivor, and Dr Frank Holloway, consultant psychiatrist at the South London and Maudsley Trust, supported the motion. Cliff Prior, Chief Executive of the National Schizophrenia Fellowship (NSF), and Professor Tom Burns, professor of community psychiatry at St George's Hospital Medical School, opposed it.


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