PurposeOccupational stress in police call handlers is researched less frequently than in operational or front-line police, despite the role's unique challenges. Occupational stress is potentially manageable, thus improved understanding of its contributors and consequences is important for effective intervention. We aimed to compare levels and sources of organisational stress in police contact and dispatch personnel with UK benchmarks. Secondly, to test whether different typologies of stress were associated with physical health, mental health and substance use.Finally, to examine whether non-organisational factors (socio-demographic factors and family interference with work (FIW)) predicted organisational stress typologies. MethodsA sample (n = 720) of police and civilian staff in a UK police call and dispatch centre were surveyed. ResultsThe strongest sources of stress were competing and high demands, low control, insufficient managerial support and ambiguity surrounding workplace changeall of which indicated need for 'urgent action' according to UK benchmarks. Substance use and particularly mental health difficulties were higher than published norms. A latent profile analysis grouped respondents into a low stress group and two high stress profiles: As stress increased across profiles, this corresponded with worse physical and mental health and higher substance use. FIW predicted membership of both high stress profiles. ConclusionDespite non-operational roles, police contact and despatch personnel can experience high occupational stress which is associated with physical and mental health difficulties and substance use. Organisational-level interventions which address lack of control, conflicting role demands as well as enhance management support and communication around change might be most effective in this group.

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use is widespread despite the controversy over its effectiveness. Although previous reviews have examined the demographics and attitudes of CAM users, there is no existing review on the traits or cognitions which characterise either CAM users or those who believe in CAM effectiveness. The current systematic review set out to address these gaps in the literature by applying a narrative synthesis. A bibliographic search and manual searches were undertaken and key authors were contacted. Twenty-three papers were selected. The trait openness to experience was positively associated with CAM use but not CAM belief. Absorption and various types of coping were also positively associated with CAM use and belief. No other trait was reliably associated with CAM use or belief. Intuitive thinking and ontological confusions were positively associated with belief in CAM effectiveness; intuitive thinking was also positively associated with CAM use. Studies researching cognitions in CAM use/belief were mostly on non-clinical samples, whilst studies on traits and CAM use/belief were mostly on patients. The quality of studies varied but unrepresentative samples, untested outcome measures and simplistic statistical analyses were the most common flaws. Traits and cognition might be important correlates of CAM use and also of faith in CAM.

The use of nurses in the provision of health and social care interventions to ex-offenders is a strategy, which could increase equity in access to health care, reduce reoffending and improve both the health and life chances of these individuals.

The Silences Framework and its underpinning concept of 'Screaming Silences' was originally presented with the invitation for further peer review and utilisation in other contexts in order to test its usefulness and enable critique by a wider audience. This paper reports the use of the framework in a study researching nurse-led interventions for released ex-offenders. Screaming Silences were situated in how an issue, as experienced by ex-offenders, screams out to them in relation to their health and its impact on their reality while remaining silent in the consciousness of society and the application of practice. In addressing these Screaming Silences, we associated the Silences Framework within marginal discourses as they are less prioritised by policy and frequently positioned as far removed from what society considers as normal. Screaming Silences were situated in the subjective experiences of ex-offenders known as the 'listener' Downloaded from and the social and personal context in which these experiences occurred. We affirmed that the framework is ideally suited for researching issues which are under-researched, silent from policy discourse and excluded from practice, as it is oriented towards exploring individual experiences by valuing individual interpretations of events.

The threat anticipation model of paranoia (Freeman, 2007) highlights the important roles of schemas and affect in delusional belief; however, we aimed to address unanswered questions about the way in which affect mediates the relationship between schemas and persecutory ideas. In Study 1, we hypothesized that anxiety would mediate the relationship between persecutory ideation (PI) and both negative-self schemas (NSS) and negative-other schemas (NOS). A nonclinical sample completed a battery of measures on computer. Anxiety partially mediated the relationship between NSS and PI, but NOS were related to PI independently of anxiety. In Study 2, an expanded model included self-esteem as a further predictor and social anxiety and depression as additional mediators. A path analysis of the expanded model suggested that the strongest fit reflected pathways from the self-concept (NSS and self-esteem) to PI via the affective variables (social anxiety, anxiety, depression), but with depression being the most important mediator. NOS still showed an independent relationship with PI. The findings suggest 2 pathways to PI: negative-self schemas depend on negative affect (particularly depression) to predict PI; in contrast, strong negative-other schemas may present sufficient foundation for persecutory beliefs regardless of negative affect.