this study contributes to the growing evidence-base which suggests that ACT could be another treatment option for people with psychosis. Further studies of ACT for people with psychosis are required to continue building upon the evidence-base.
Within healthcare services, we facilitate ACT-based groups for people with mental health difficulties. We have an opportunity here to set up ACT-based groups specifically for people with psychosis and conduct service evaluation studies to evaluate their feasibility in services.
The study aimed to evaluate the efficacy, and explore carers' experience, of a brief carer focussed intervention in an Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP) service using a mixed methods approach.
To better understand the overall burden of schizophrenia, we aimed to explore informal caregivers’ experiences by evaluating the current evidence on caregiver and patient characteristics, the type of care provided by caregivers, and the impacts of caregiving on caregivers’ lives.
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Shuichi Suetani and Sharon Lawn explore an article on psychosis physical health problems, which asks: Is it time to consider the views of family carers?
Accessible Summary What is known on the subject? • The admission of a loved one for first episode psychosis can cause considerable distress and confusion for family members. • Psychoeducation can enhance family members’ knowledge of the disease process and their role in supporting recovery. What this paper adds to existing knowledge • There is limited research on psychoeducation processes within adult inpatient settings. • A Practitioner Narrative found that basic assessment questions can help guide the psychoeducation process. The Stress Vulnerability and Phases of Psychosis Models are valuable and efficient educational tools in answering many typical questions. What are the implications for practice? • Psychoeducation sessions should be offered routinely in the early stage of a first‐episode psychosis, but must be individualised to family needs and concerns. • The psychoeducation structure also provides an opportunity for family members to ‘tell their story’ to process the events leading up to a first admission and their emotional reactions to the service user's illness.. To read the full article, log in using your NHS Athens details. To access full-text: click “Log in/Register” (top right hand side). Click ‘Institutional Login’ then select 'OpenAthens Federation', then ‘NHS England’. Enter your Athens details to view the article.
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Free access. An article in the UK article The Telegraph suggests that events in a person’s life can lead to mental illness (March 28, 2016 by Sarah Knapton, Science Editor, The Telegraph) Most of the information I have read about mental illness implies that mental illness is most often associated with genes, but this new information tells me that it should not be genetics getting all the research.
Recently, I thought of the UK article again when in my home town, a gunman, with seemingly no cause, opened fired and killed a police officer at the local bus station. I wondered what events in his life may have led to this horribly sad situation.
The article and the recent shooting caused me to reflect on what events in my own life might have led to my diagnosis of schizophrenia.
Open access. I explain the notion of contributory injustice, a kind of epistemic injustice, and argue that it occurs within psychiatric services, affecting (at least) those who hear voices. I argue that individual effort on the part of clinicians to avoid perpetrating this injustice is an insufficient response to the problem; mitigating the injustice will require open and meaningful dialogue between clinicians and service user organisations, as well as individuals. I suggest that clinicians must become familiar with and take seriously concepts and frameworks for understanding mental distress developed in service user communities, such as Hearing Voices Network, and by individual service users. This is especially necessary when these concepts and frameworks explicitly conflict with medical or technical understandings of users’ experiences. I defend this proposal against three objections.
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Treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS) affects about one-third of individuals with schizophrenia. People with TRS do not experience sustained symptom relief and at the same time have the most severe disease-related disability and associated costs among individuals with severe mental disorders. Like caregivers of people with treatment-responsive schizophrenia, caregivers of individuals with TRS experience the disease burden along with their care recipients; however, for those providing care for individuals with TRS, the stress of the burden is unrelenting due to uncontrolled symptoms and a lack of effective treatment options. The objective of this study is to better understand the burden of TRS from the caregiver perspective and to explore their perception of available treatments.
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I have endured auditory and visual hallucinations, paranoid thoughts, and depressive symptoms since the age of 6 (some 40 years ago), and was formally diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, depressive type in young adulthood. I chose not to surrender to my illness, but instead to wage a war against my symptoms. And I felt that I was winning that war until I chose to leave a successful but stressful career (built over a period of 25 years) to restore my health and my quality of life. . Please contact the library to request a copy of this article - http://bit.ly/1Xyazai
The aim was to quantify caregiver distress among informal caregivers of individuals with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and identify its correlates. Login at top right hand side of page using your SSSFT NHS OpenAthens for full text.
Open access. To assess the patients' most influential concerns regarding long-acting injectable antipsychotics (LAIs) and mental health professionals' preconceptions about these concerns. For both groups, to assess the level of knowledge about LAIs. This cross-sectional study used semi-structured interviews of patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (n = 164), nurses (n = 43) and physicians (n = 20).
Non-adherence is a major public health problem despite treatment advances. Poor drug adherence in patients with psychosis is associated with more frequent relapse, re-hospitalization, increased consumption of health services and poor outcomes on a variety of measures. Adherence rate in patients with first episode psychosis have been found to vary from 40 to 60%. However, most previous studies have addressed the consequences of non-adherence rather than its potential causes.
The purpose of this study was, therefore, to investigate experiential factors which may affect adherence to medication in adults with psychotic disorders, during the 24-month period after the onset of treatment.
Schizophrenia is a complex, heterogeneous disorder, with highly variable treatment outcomes, and relatively little is known about what is important to patients. The aim of the study was to understand treatment outcomes informal carers perceive to be important to people with schizophrenia.
Despite clinical guidelines recommendations, many relatives of people with psychosis or bipolar disorder do not currently receive the support they need. Online information and support may offer a solution.
Open Access Article
Laoise Renwick on a systematic review of barriers and facilitators to implementing family support and education in early psychosis intervention programmes.