The Health of the Nation Outcome Scales for Child & Adolescent Mental Health (HoNOSCA)

The child and adolescent version of the Health of the Nation Outcome Scales (HoNOSCA) represents the first attempt at a routine outcome measure for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in the U.K. Extensive field trials suggested that the scales were both acceptable to clinicians from the various disciplines working in this area and also valid and reliable. A growing number of services are now using the scales in audit and research, supported by the national HoNOSCA base that provides training and co-ordinates further developments.     

Expenditures on Mental Health Care in the Czech Republic in 2015

Psychiatric Quarterly - Expenditures on mental health care in the Czech Republic are not being published regularly, yet they are indispensable for evaluation of the ongoing reform of Czech mental...     

The New Mental Health Act

The Act provides a charter for the care, treatment and training of the mentally disordered, and everyone working with the mentally subnormal should understand its provisions. This general review is intended to help them to do so.     

Overcoming the Dual Stigma of Mental Illness and Aging: Preparing New Nurses to Care for the Mental Health Needs of Older Adults

ObjectiveRegistered nurses are uniquely positioned to fill shortages in the geropsychiatric healthcare workforce. With training, nurses can coordinate both mental and physical healthcare and deliver mental health interventions. Our objective was to determine how nursing educators are preparing students to care for the mental health needs of older adults and to explore the challenges they face in this effort.MethodsThis was a qualitative study using semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Participants were undergraduate psychiatric nursing instructors recruited from schools of nursing in the Northeastern United States. Semistructured interviews focused on challenges and strategies related to preparing nursing students to meet the mental health needs of older patients.ResultsFourteen interviews were conducted. An overarching theme of bias against geropsychiatric care was identified as a challenge for educators. Educators reported that nursing students carry biases against patients with mental illness and older patients. Nursing students indicated negative perceptions of the psychiatric and geriatric nursing specialties. Most nursing students plan to work in nonpsychiatric settings and do not consider mental health a priority for their patients. To overcome these challenges, educators suggested increased exposure and integration. To prepare new nurses to care for the mental health needs of older patients, nursing schools should expose nursing students to older adults in a variety of settings and integrate mental health topics and training throughout the undergraduate nursing curriculum.ConclusionNursing schools should evaluate their curricula to ensure that mental health content is prioritized and sufficiently integrated with physical health topics. An increased focus on geropsychiatric and integrated mental health content should be supported by nursing programs and state boards of nursing.     

Behavioral Health Leadership: New Directions in Occupational Mental Health

The impact of stress on mental health in high-risk occupations may be mitigated by organizational factors such as leadership. Studies have documented the impact of general leadership skills on employee performance and mental health. Other researchers have begun examining specific leadership domains that address relevant organizational outcomes, such as safety climate leadership. One emerging approach focuses on domain-specific leadership behaviors that may moderate the impact of combat deployment on mental health. In a recent study, US soldiers deployed to Afghanistan rated leaders on behaviors promoting management of combat operational stress. When soldiers rated their leaders high on these behaviors, soldiers also reported better mental health and feeling more comfortable with the idea of seeking mental health treatment. These associations held even after controlling for overall leadership ratings. Operational stress leader behaviors also moderated the relationship between combat exposure and soldier health. Domain-specific leadership offers an important step in identifying measures to moderate the impact of high-risk occupations on employee health.     

The New Chinese Mental Health Law

A new national mental health law for China came into force in 2013, extending the cover of mental health legislation to a further 20% of the world's people. This article focuses on the new law's civil commitment regime. It analyses the provisions governing compulsory hospitalisation, review of compulsory status, and the powers of patients' guardians. We ask whether the rights-oriented form of the new law is likely to be reflected fully in practice, in light of the dominant role accorded family members in decision-making about compulsory hospitalisation, and in light of the limits imposed on the protection of individual rights by the prevailing judicial and medical cultures in China.     

A Comprehensive Model for Mental Health Tobacco Recovery in New Jersey

Despite the high prevalence of tobacco use, disproportionate tobacco consumption, and excess morbidity and mortality, smokers with mental illness have reduced access to tobacco dependence treatment across the health care spectrum. We have developed a comprehensive model for Mental Health Tobacco Recovery in New Jersey (MHTR-NJ) that has the overarching goal of improving tobacco cessation for smokers with serious mental illness. Important steps involve engaging patients, professionals and the community to increase understanding that addressing tobacco use is important. In addition to increasing demand for tobacco treatment services, we must educate mental health professionals in evidence-based treatments so that patients can seek help in their usual behavioral health care setting. Peer services that offer hope and support to smokers are essential. Each of the policy or cessation initiatives described address the two core goals of this model: to increase demand for tobacco cessation services for mentally ill smokers and to help more smokers with mental illness to quit. Each has been pilot tested for feasibility and/or effectiveness and revised with feedback from stakeholders. In this way this implementation model has brought together academics, clinicians, administrators and mental health consumers to develop tobacco programming and policy that has been tested in a real world environment and serves as a model for other states.