Quality indicators for primary care mental health services

Objectives: To identify a generic set of face valid quality indicators for primary care mental health services which reflect a multi-stakeholder perspective and can be used for facilitating quality improvement.

Design: Modified two-round postal Delphi questionnaire.

Setting: Geographical spread across Great Britain.

Participants: One hundred and fifteen panellists representing 11 different stakeholder groups within primary care mental health services (clinical psychologist, health and social care commissioner, community psychiatric nurse, counsellor, general practitioner, practice nurse/district nurse/health visitor, psychiatrist, social worker, carer, patient and voluntary organisations).

Main outcome measures: Face validity (median rating of 8 or 9 on a nine point scale with agreement by all panels) for assessing quality of care.

Results: A maximum of 334 indicators were rated by panels in the second round; 26% were rated valid by all panels. These indicators were categorised into 21 aspects of care, 11 relating to general practices and 10 relating to health authorities or primary care groups/trusts. There was variation in the total number of indicators rated valid across the different panels. Overall, GPs rated the lowest number of indicators as valid (41%, n=138) and carers rated the highest number valid (91%, n=304).

Conclusions: The quality indicators represent consensus among key stakeholder groups in defining quality of care within primary care mental health services. These indicators could provide a guide for primary care organisations embarking on quality improvement initiatives in mental health care when addressing national targets and standards relating to primary care set out in the National Service Framework for Mental Health for England. Although many of the indicators relate to parochial issues in UK service delivery, the methodology used in the development of the indicators could be applied in other settings to produce locally relevant indicators.

     

Neuroendocrine response to 5-hydroxytryptophan in seasonal affective disorder

A double-blind random-ordered comparison of the effects of placebo and 5-hydroxytryptophan (200 mg, orally) in ten depressed patients with seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and ten controls disclosed slightly but significantly higher basal levels of serum prolactin and a trend toward higher basal levels of serum cortisol in the patients with SAD compared with controls. After administration of 5-HTP, the cortisol level significantly increased and the prolactin level significantly decreased in both patients and controls. No differences in the melatonin level, growth hormone level, blood pressure, or pulse rate and no side effects were noted between patients and controls in the two study conditions; the timing of basal and 5-hydroxytryptophan-stimulated hormonal secretions was similar for both groups. These results are discussed with reference to current hypotheses of the cause of SAD.     

Indomethacin and flurbiprofen speed recovery of rat bronchial epithelium after exposure to cigarette smoke

The cigarette smoke-induced rat model of chronic bronchitis was used to study the time course of the return of cigarette smoke-induced secretory cell hyperplasia to the normal and the capacity of two non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs to speed this recovery. Cigarette smoke alone significantly increased (P less than 0.05) the number of secretory cells in all of the eight airway levels studied to between 52-225% above control values. After cessation of exposure, recovery was complete by 9 days in the trachea, between 10-21 days in 'proximal' intrapulmonary airways and 43-84 days in distal bronchioli. Indomethacin and flurbiprofen, given by intraperitoneal injection at 4 mg/kg body weight for 21 days of the recovery period, significantly reduced the time taken for recovery to between 4 and 9 days in intrapulmonary airways but had no effect in the trachea.     

Is EMDR an exposure therapy? A review of trauma protocols

This article presents the well established theoretical base and clinical practice of exposure therapy for trauma. Necessary requirements for positive treatment results and contraindicated procedures are reviewed. EMDR is contrasted with these requirements and procedures. By the definitions and clinical practice of exposure therapy, the classification of EMDR poses some problems. As seen from the exposure therapy paradigm, its lack of physiological habituation and use of spontaneous association should result in negligible or negative effects rather than the well researched positive outcomes. Possible reasons for the effectiveness of EMDR are discussed, ranging from the fundamental nature of trauma reactions to the nonexposure mechanisms utilized in information processing models.     

Mixed organic brain syndrome as a manifestation of systemic mastocytosis

Systemic mastocytosis is a disease characterized by an excessive accumulation of mast cells, and associated with skin lesions, flushing, diarrhea, tachycardia, and psychiatric manifestations. In order to define more clearly the psychiatric manifestations, ten patients with this disorder underwent unstructured psychiatric interviews and a battery of psychologic testing. Both revealed a pattern of cognitive and affective changes in the majority of these patients, best categorized as an atypical or mixed organic brain syndrome. The cognitive changes consisted of diminished attention and memory, and the affective changes of anger, irritability, and, to a lesser extent, depression. These manifestations fluctuated with the level of disease activity, and appeared in some cases to respond to histamine antagonists and disodium cromoglycate, medications used to control the excessive mast cell activity. It is important for psychiatrists to be aware that mental status changes can represent psychiatric manifestations of mastocytosis, a readily treatable medical disorder.     

Mycoplasma pneumoniae Induces Chronic Respiratory Infection, Airway Hyperreactivity, and Pulmonary Inflammation: a Murine Model of Infection-Associated Chronic Reactive Airway Disease

Because chronic Mycoplasma pneumoniae respiratory infection is hypothesized to play a role in asthma, the potential of M. pneumoniae to establish chronic respiratory infection with associated pulmonary disease was investigated in a murine model. BALB/c mice were intranasally inoculated once with M. pneumoniae and examined at 109, 150, 245, 368, and 530 days postinoculation. M. pneumoniae was detected in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid by culture or PCR in 70 and 22% of mice at 109 and 530 days postinoculation, respectively. Lung histopathology was normal up to 368 days postinoculation. At 530 days, however, 78% of the mice inoculated with M. pneumoniae demonstrated abnormal histopathology characterized by peribronchial and perivascular mononuclear infiltrates. A mean histopathologic score (HPS) at 530 days of 5.1 was significantly greater (P < 0.01) than that for controls (HPS score of 0). Serum anti-M. pneumoniae immunoglobulin G was detectable in all of the mice inoculated with M. pneumoniae and was inversely correlated with HPS (r = -0.95, P = 0.01) at 530 days postinoculation. Unrestrained whole-body plethysmography measurement of enhanced pause revealed significantly elevated airway methacholine reactivity in M. pneumoniae-inoculated mice compared with that in controls at 245 days (P = 0.03) and increased airway obstruction at 530 days (P = 0.01). Murine M. pneumoniae respiratory infection can lead to chronic pulmonary disease characterized by airway hyperreactivity, airway obstruction, and histologic inflammation.     

Is the grading of breast carcinomas affected by a delay in fixation?

Summary The effect of delay in fixation on the modified Bloom and Richardson grade of eight breast carcinomas was investigated. Topologically shuffled samples of each tumour were immersed in fixative at times of 0.5, 2, 4, 6, 18 and 24 h after surgical removal. The grade of each tumour was assessed at delays of 0.5 and 6 h. The tubule formation and nuclear pleomorphism components of the grade showed no change with a delay in fixation of 6 h. The number of mitotic figures declined by a mean of 53% over the same period and this resulted in a decrease in the histological grade of one of the tumours. The implications of these findings for the handling of breast specimens in a diagnostic histopathological laboratory are discussed.Some of these data were presented at the 162nd meeting of the Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland at Cambridge, 3 January 1991. Published as an abstract in J Pathol (1991) 163:154A     

Cognitive impairment after unilateral hemispheric injury of congenital or adult origin.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to assess and compare cognitive functioning in adults with unilateral hemispheric injury due to either congenital damage or an ischemic event in young adulthood. METHOD: Adults with cerebral palsy resulting from left hemispheric brain damage were compared with adults who had a unilateral stroke in either the left or the right hemisphere. Our primary interest was to determine the impact on hemispheric dominance as revealed by dichotic listening, a task that assesses the bias for preferential listening and processing of sounds. Performance also was determined on a language-related task (word finding) and a spatial task (dot localization). RESULTS: Scores on the Quick Neurological Screening Test indicated that all participants demonstrated significant neuromotor deficits, whereas scores on the Barthel Index indicated that the participants were functional in basic activities of daily living. On cognitive assessments, healthy control participants demonstrated a pronounced left-hemisphere dominance and right-ear advantage; participants with injury to the left hemisphere showed a strong shift toward a right-hemisphere and left-ear dominance. In particular, injury of congenital origin appeared to foster this neural reorganization and localization of language-related functions into the healthy hemisphere. This shift was associated with a deterioration of performance on both the language and the spatial tasks. CONCLUSION: The importance of appreciating subtle deficits after unilateral injury is important in therapy. The dichotic listening test may provide a simple and useful means for evaluating persistent unilateral brain dysfunction in the clinical setting.