Categories In Psychiatry Research Articles

Ethical Issues in Epidemiologic Research

In this work, ethics in psychiatric research is covered in eight chapters. The first has a review of research on informed consent, confidentiality, and the right to refuse treatment. There is an awareness that patients need the best information concerning their care so that they can become more equally responsible along with the physician in the extended treatment. Chapter 2 looks at the ethical needs for reliable and valid categories in psychiatry and how these categories may be used in avoiding abuse, for instance misdiagnosis that depends on subjective criteria and bias. Chapter 3 investigates the many ethical issues that mental health policy raises, especially policy that emerges from the structure of the community mental health movement and the deinstitutionalization of the psychiatric patient. Chapter 4 addresses the need for appropriate investigation of the natural history of mental illness, longitudinal studies, and how to protect the privacy of the patient

Finger painting: a projective technique.

Finger painting was used in a diversified program with two different groups of patients, primarily as a medium for expression of feeling that facilitated the collection of diagnostic data and the detection of change in mental status. It was found to be an economical method of eliciting data and monitoring change during therapy. In this technique the patient produces his own material and verbally associates to it thus giving a more objective profile of personality and psychopathology. Perusal of the literature revealed no recent studies of the technique and prompted a documentation of this project at the Reddy Memorial Hospital. The technique proved itself a worthwhile method of eliciting data but needs to be scientifically evaluated. Attempts should also be made to assess its ability to discriminate between different diagnostic categories in psychiatry.