• Long term conditions and mental health: an audit of local data

      Morrissey, Hana; Arikawe, Olutayo; Paul, Pamela; Sandhu, Manjinder; Sadique, Zain; Ball, Patrick (International Journal of Current Pharmaceutical Research, 2021-03-23)
      Objective: Studies have shown that mental health is affected by poor physical health, with people living in the deprived area are the most affected. Community Pharmacists potentially have a new role in supporting people with mental illness and dementia to manage their medications. The aim of this local audit was to compare the local population to the national and global population, to inform the development and provision of local pharmacy mental health screening services, to support patients diagnosed with long-term conditions. Methods: This project was designed as an audit of anonymised local data, to inform the development of services offered by community pharmacies to improve adherence to therapy amongst patients diagnosed with long-term conditions in the Black Country, UK. It forms part of a larger study granted ethical approval by the Health Research Authority in 2018. It was carried out against the background of the Covid-19 epidemic. A total of 652 patients pharmacy records were reviewed between March and April 2020. No patient identifiers were included in the reviewed data. Results: This means that the results of this analysis might not be applicable to the entire local population outside the 31-90 y of age range. Conclusion: It is was demonstrated during COVID-19 that pharmacists are well-positioned as easily accessible health care facilities to support patients, especially when the other NHS facilities are stretched or closed. Community pharmacies are in a position to offer large-scale screening programs such as self-completed anxiety, depression and cognitive function screening surveys and refer to general practitioners for further investigations. It is also recommended that the New Medicines Service include mental health disorder patients prescribed pharmacological therapy and to allow the pharmacists appropriate access to medical records to facilitate safe, integrated and effective patient care.
    • Mental health status and perceived burden in caregiving spouses of persons with psychotic illness (a study from India)

      Stanley, Selwyn; Bhuvaneswari, G. Mettilda; Bhakyalakshmi, S. (Taylor & Francis, 2015-12-14)
      Mental illness poses a great deal of burden on other family members, particularly the primary caregiver. In the Indian context for a married person with mental illness, the caregiving burden is usually experienced by the spouse, who is considered to be the ‘natural’ option. This quantitative study used survey methodology to assess caregiving burden in fifty spouses of persons diagnosed with a psychotic illness. Data was collected at a neuro-psychiatric facility in Tiruchirappalli, India. The Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale and the Burden Assessment Schedule were the instruments administered to assess the mental health status of the spouse and their perceived burden. Findings revealed that the majority of spouses were classified as experiencing ‘severe’ and ‘extremely severe’ in terms of their depression, anxiety and stress levels and ‘high’ in terms of perceived burden. The specific ‘type’ of clinical diagnosis, however, did not differentiate the spouses on the key variables studied. The correlation of these key variables with other background variables has also been examined. The implications of the results of this study for psychosocial intervention have also been discussed in this article.
    • Terrorism and Mental Illness: Is There A Relationship?

      Weatherston, David; Moran, Jonathan (Sage Publications, 2003)
      This article examines the connections between mental illness and terrorism. Most social scientists have discounted a causal relationship between mental illness and terrorism. This is not necessarily always the case within terrorism studies, the media, or political circles where the psychology of terrorism is often expressed in the language of mentalisms, and theories of pathologisation continue to exist. This article reaffirms the view that apart from certain pathological cases, there is no causal connection between an individual’s mental disorder and engagement in terrorist activity. The individual terrorist’s motivations can be explained by other factors, including behavioural psychology. However, there may be a connection between an individual engaging in terrorist activity and developing a mental disorder[s]. Certain stressors that occur because of terrorist activity may result in psychological disturbance in terrorist individuals. These factors may partially explain terrorist group instability and should be taken into account when detaining and interrogating terrorist suspects.