Acute hospital care: the beauty and the beast of psychiatry

Dratcu, Luiz

doi:10.1192/pb.26.3.81

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…There are a considerable number of consumers unable to live within the community, either independently or with the family, because of the serious nature of their mental illness. These people take up a large proportion of the already reduced inpatient mental health beds (Dratcu 2002;Lawrence et al 1991) or they may become homeless or incarcerated within the prison system. A prison inmate health survey conducted in New South Wales, Australia found 54% of males and 39% of females had been diagnosed with a psychiatric condition (Butler & Milner 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How involuntary commitment impacts on the burden of care of the family

Hallam

2007

Int J Mental Health Nurs

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Little research has examined how, or if, involuntary commitment has impacted on the burden experienced by the family. This paper reports a qualitative study which explored how involuntary commitment under the Mental Health Act (MHA) 2000 in Queensland, Australia impacted on families of people with mental illness. Family members of a person with a mental illness, under involuntary commitment at the time or in the previous 12 months, participated in focus groups. Thematic analysis was used to determine the themes. It was apparent from the views of the family that the use of the involuntary commitment was influenced greatly by the pressures experienced by the mental health services (MHS). The MHA did little to assist the family in gaining access to MHS. It was not until after the family made repeated attempts that they were taken seriously. Often the family had few options other than to use deceit and threats to obtain the necessary treatment required. In view of this, the inherit nature of what involuntary commitment implies for persons under it, such as refusing treatment and management difficulties, indicates the family with such an individual experience more hardship in trying to obtain assistance for that person. Thus, the MHA in Queensland has not met its goals of increasing access to MHS. Family members perceive that they were not being listened to and their concerns were not acted upon. The current culture of the MHS appears to serve, to a large degree, to estrange the family from the consumer making relationships difficult and time-consuming to repair. The mental health profession is urged to consider the culture within their workplace and move towards constructive involvement of the family.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How involuntary commitment impacts on the burden of care of the family

Hallam

2007

Int J Mental Health Nurs

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“…He concludes that 'it is probably time to review and reshape acute hospital services with the same determination with which community services were once promoted.' 22 While this article is not suggesting that community treatment has failed, the situation in the UK highlights the need to maintain well-functioning hospital services. In a region like Northern Tasmania, where the state is the only specialist service provider, priority has to be given to adequate hospital treatment.…”

Section: Issues Arising From the Studymentioning

confidence: 89%

“…While the original vision had been for community treatment to replace hospital care, it is now widely accepted that a substantial proportion of mentally ill individuals will always need inpatient care, with the seriously mentally ill remaining the heaviest users. 21,22 Since hospital treatment is the most expensive component of a mental health service, this means that in many rural and regional services inpatient care continues to consume the bulk of resources, thereby limiting the options for community based services. The balance of hospital and community services in these regions is therefore a critical issue.…”

Section: Models Of Community Treatment For Mental Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Balancing Hospital and Community Treatment: Effectiveness of an Extended‐hours Community Mental Health Team in a Semi‐rural Region of Australia

Daphne¹,

Habibis²,

Mike_³

et al. 2003

Australian J Rural Health

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This study suggests that in rural and regional areas characterised by limited resources, it is too much to expect community treatment teams to have a measurable impact on consumer outcomes. In these settings hospital care remains at the heart of the service. This means that regions such as these need to focus their community services on what is achievable given the level of resources and social ecology. For example, they may need to consider offering either crisis intervention or rehabilitation services and to rely on innovations, such as telehealth or strategic alliances with other service providers to fill the gap.

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“…2,3 Care in the community can only work for patients who are well enough to live and survive in the community, and consequently a systematic needs-assessment approach is essential for responsible and effective placement planning. 4 Such planning requires multidimensional needsassessment rather than just diagnosis-based approaches, as diagnosis alone is a poor predictor of patients' needs as well as their use of resources. 5 In the present study, the institutional and community service requirements of patients from the inpatient facilities of an urban psychiatric hospital were assessed.…”

Section: Community Placement Planning For a Long Stay In-hospital Popmentioning

confidence: 99%