Research on the effectiveness of short-term education programs in changing societal attitudes about mental illness has been mixed. Education efforts seem to be mediated by characteristics of the program participants. This study determines whether the effects of a specially prepared, semester-long course on severe mental illness are mediated by pre-education knowledge about and contact with severe mental illness. Eighty-three participants who were enrolled in either a course on severe mental illness or general psychology completed the Opinions about Mental Illness Questionnaire before beginning the course and at completion. Research participants also completed a pre-and posttest of knowledge about mental illness and a pretest on their contact with people who have severe mental illness. The education program had positive effects on some attitudes about mental illness. Interestingly, the effects of education group interacted with pre-education knowledge and contact and varied depending on attitude. Participants with more pre-education knowledge and contact were less likely to endorse benevolence attitudes after completing the education program. Participants with more intimate contact showed less improvement in attitudes about social restrictiveness. Implications of these augmentation and ceiling effects are discussed.

Recovery as a concept has gained increased attention in the field of mental health. There is an expectation that service providers use a recovery framework in their work. This raises the question of what recovery means, and how it is conceptualised and operationalised. It is proposed that service providers approach the application of recovery principles by considering systematically individual recovery goals in multiple domains, encompassing clinical recovery, personal recovery, social recovery and functional recovery. This approach enables practitioners to focus on service users' personal recovery goals while considering parallel goals in the clinical, social, and role-functioning domains. Practitioners can reconceptualise recovery as involving more than symptom remission, and interventions can be tailored to aspects of recovery of importance to service users. In order to accomplish this shift, practitioners will require effective assessments, access to optimal treatment and care, and the capacity to conduct recovery planning in collaboration with service users and their families and carers. Mental health managers can help by fostering an organisational culture of service provision that supports a broader focus than that on clinical recovery alone, extending to client-centred recovery planning in multiple recovery domains.

A formal PMPI has promising predictive validity with respect to job seekers not opposed to pragmatic forms of self-disclosure. Further research is needed to examine other properties of this decision-making tool.

Delivering an effective supported employment program using an inter-agency partnership method is challenging. There are several roles in which occupational therapists can be involved that facilitate improving both the implementation and the effectiveness of supported employment for people with severe mental illness in Australia.

Background Health care systems are changing and with them, the role and scope of occupational therapy. The inpatient mental health setting is one area where change has been rapid and expansive, directly impacting on the role of occupational therapy. Literature pertaining to the current practice of occupational therapy in this setting is currently overshadowed by a focus on community-based care. This article aims to describe and summarize the recently published literature regarding current practices of occupational therapy in this important setting. Methods Current practices were identified with reference to policy documents, text books and journal articles dating from 1990 to the present day. Findings There was found to be a paucity of current literature relating to occupational therapy practice in acute mental health. From the literature that was available, four core elements of occupational therapy practice in acute mental health were identified: individual assessment, individual treatment, therapeutic groups, and discharge planning. Conclusions It is suggested that the development and communication of the occupational therapy role focusing on the four core elements of practice will provide a sound base for the development of the clinical role of occupational therapy in acute mental health. Occupational therapists working in the acute mental health setting are encouraged to be aware of the available literature pertaining to this area and establish a renewed focus on clinical research to evaluate current practice and to guide debate on emerging occupational therapy roles.