Education Of Mental Health Professionals Research Articles

Exploration of Roles and Contribution of Spiritual Care Practitioners in Mental Health: An Australian Study.

Mental health is inherently multidimensional, requiring a holistic approach to intervention that integrates various aspects of an individual's well-being. Spirituality, a vital component of mental health, remains under addressed in Australian mental healthcare. Spiritual care practitioners may play a key role in addressing spiritual needs in mental healthcare; however, their roles and contributions in this context remain unexplored in the extant literature. Bridging this gap, this study explores the potential role of spiritual care practitioners within mental health context. Using a qualitative research approach, this study engaged eight experienced spiritual care practitioners working in various mental health settings across Australia(n = 8). Through reflexive thematic analysis, the study identified and examined the practitioners' perspectives on their roles and contributions. The findings were summarised in three overarching themes: (1) Core values; (2) Unique contributions in mental health; and (3) Spiritual care practitioners in the mental health system. The study's findings suggest that by employing a person-centred approach, spiritual care practitioners canplay a crucial role in mental health assessments and interventions. Their contributions include providing insights rooted in clients' unique spiritual beliefs, aiding in the discernment between spiritual experiences and psychopathological symptoms, advocating for clients' spiritual needs, and supporting the education of mental health professionals. The study also highlights the need for professional recognition of spiritual care practitioners and their greater integration within the mental health system.

Perceptions of Mental Health Professionals on Nutritional Psychiatry as an Adjunct Treatment in Mainstream Psychiatric Settings in New South Wales, Australia.

Background Nutritional psychiatry refers to the practice of using food, or nutrition, as alternative or complementary treatment for mental health disorders. It is a growing area of research that has shown links between the biological processes in the gut and how the food we consume can impact cognitive function, which then can impact our mood and behaviour. However, there is a lack of understanding on the knowledge and education of nutritional psychiatry in mental health clinicians, and further, how nutritional psychiatry, if at all, is practised in psychiatric clinical settings. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the perceptions, knowledge, and education of mental health professionals within the state of New South Wales, Australia regarding their clinical practice and knowledge of nutritional psychiatry. Methods In this cross-sectional study, a self-administered structured questionnaire created by the authors was successfully completed by 40 mental health professionals (mental health nurses, occupational therapists, psychologists, medical officers, and other allied health workers) who were working in New South Wales, Australia. 49 questionnaires were attempted with nine excluded due to these being predominantly incomplete, including demographic data only or empty,ensuring integrity of the remaining data and analysis. The questionnaire aimed to uncover their perceptions, knowledge, and education in nutritional psychiatry and its role in mental health settings. The questionnaire included 16 questions that covered various themes such as the frequency and importance of discussing nutrition with patients, nutrition referrals for issues regarding nutrition, the value of including nutritional psychiatry in their clinical practice, and clinician training and willingness to train or gain further education in nutritional psychiatry. Data was analysed through a series of frequency tables to categorise patterns and identify patternsthrough the use of descriptive statistics in our analysis of the distribution of attitudes and practicesamong mental health professionals regarding nutritional psychiatry. Results A total of 40 mental health clinicians successfully completed the survey and their results were analysed. The results suggest that most clinicians (85% to 93%) recognised the importance of nutrition in mental health, however, revealed variousbarriers which hinderedtheir clinical practice such as a lack of time, knowledge, and access to nutritional services. Further, 54% of clinicians rated their knowledge of nutritional psychiatry as low, however, 92% revealed that they would attend nutritional psychiatry training if given the opportunity. Additionally, the clinicians reported varied levels of education in nutrition, with 43% reporting no education at all on nutrition in their preclinical studies. Conclusions Clinicians recognise the importance of nutrition in mental health settings, but revealed lack of time, knowledge, and nutritional services as barriers in clinical practice. Further, clinicians reported a lack of pre-clinical education on nutrition together with an overwhelming interest in engaging with nutritional psychiatry education if it were made available. These conclusions provide important insights for higher education and health policy.

Impact of involvement in mental health professional education on patient educators: a qualitative systematic review

ObjectivesPatient involvement in mental health professional education is required by policy but lacks a robust evidence base. The impact of involvement in education on patients with mental health conditions may...

Caveat emptor: Mental health specialty certifications and the public's preferences for clinical care.

Appropriate training and continuing education for mental health professionals are designed to ensure that clinicians provide effective and ethical care. Mental health consumers may depend upon these credentials to judge the level of a professional's competence, but whether these activities and credentials provide a valid indicator of knowledge and skills is subject to debate. The present study was designed to examine preferences for mental health clinicians among potential consumers and factors that may inform these preferences, specifically comparing preferences for doctoral-level mental health clinicians and masters-level clinicians with and without specialty certification for treating anxiety symptoms. Cross-sectional assessment with self-report surveys (clinician preferences, prior mental health diagnosis and treatment, demographic characteristics, generalized anxiety symptoms, mental health literacy, and mental health stigma) was administered in two samples: a college student sample (N = 224; 71.9% female; Mage = 19.1, SD = 1.5) and a sample of adults with chronic pain (N = 116; 74.1% female; Mage = 43.8, SD = 13.8). The present study found that across both samples, therapists with a specialty certification were preferred over those without such credentials within each profession, and that certification status trumped professional standing such that certified masters-level clinicians were rated more highly than noncertified PhD-level clinicians. These findings are indicative of a schism between how the field of clinical psychology conceptualizes itself and how it is seen by its consumers. Implications of our findings for mental health consumers, clinicians, and professional organizations are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Fake news and false memory formation in the psychology debate

Fake news can generate memory distortions and influence people's behavior. Within the framework of the great debates, the tendency to generate false memories from fake news seems to be modulated by the ideological alignment of each individual. This effect has been observed mainly around issues involving large sectors of society, but little is known about its impact on smaller-scale discussions focused on more specific populations. In this work we examine the formation of false memories from fake news in the debate between psychological currents in Argentina. For this, 326 individuals aligned to psychoanalysis (PSA) or Evidence-Based Practices (EBP) observed a series of news (12 true and 8 fabricated). The EBP group remembered or believed more fake news that damaged PSA. They also remembered with greater precision the statements of the news that harmed their own school, than those referring to others. These results could be understood as the product of an imbalance in the commitment between the different parties, since the group that proposes the paradigm shift (EBP) exhibited a congruence effect, while the group whose orientation is hegemonic in this field (PSA) did not show any effect of ideological alignment. The fact that the congruence effect is manifested to some extent in settings as relevant as the education of mental health professionals, highlights the need to move towards more careful practices in the consumption and production of media.

Power to the people? A co-produced critical review of service user involvement in mental health professions education.

Meaningful service user involvement in health professions education requires integrating knowledge held by "lay" people affected by health challenges into professional theories and practices. Involving service users redefines whose knowledge "counts" and implies a shift in power. Such a shift is especially significant in the mental health field, where power imbalances between health professionals and service users are magnified. However, reviews of the literature on service user involvement in mental health professional education do little to explore how power manifests in this work. Meanwhile critical and Mad studies scholars have highlighted that without real shifts in power, inclusion practices can lead to harmful consequences. We conducted a critical review to explore how power is addressed in the literature that describes service user involvement in mental health professions education. Our team used a co-produced approach and critical theories to identify how power implicitly and explicitly operates in this work to unearth the inequities and power structures that service user involvement may inadvertently perpetuate. We demonstrate that power permeates service user involvement in mental health professional education but is rarely made visible. We also argue that by missing the opportunity to locate power, the literature contributes to a series of epistemic injustices that reveal the contours of legitimate knowledge in mental health professions education and its neoliberal underpinnings. Ultimately, we call for a critical turn that foregrounds power relations to unlock the social justice-oriented transformative potential of service user involvement in mental health professions education and health professions education more broadly.

Perspectives of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) community members regarding mental health services: A qualitative analysis.

INTRODUCTION: Victoria is one of the most multicultural states in Australia. Many CALD communities in Victoria may have encountered complicated migration journeys and complex life stressors during their initial settlement, leading to adverse mental health concerns. This diversity necessitates public policy settings to ensure equity and access in health services planning and delivery. While the MH policies and services take cultural diversity into account, there needs to be more implementation of those components of MH policies that relate to the particular needs of various CALD communities in Victoria. Even though mental health services prevent and address mental health issues, many barriers can impair CALD community access and utilisation of mental health services. Furthermore, the recent Royal Commission inquiry into the Victorian Mental Health system drives a renewed policy imperative to ensure meaningful engagement and cultural safety of all people accessing and utilising mental health services (Department of Health, 2023). This study focused on the perspectives of people from CALD communities in Victoria regarding their mental health service needs, understandings of and experiences with mental health services to prepare an education package for mental health nurses as part of a larger multi-method research project. A qualitative descriptive design was used to collect and analyse the perspectives of 21 participants in Victoria, using telephone interviews, followed by thematic analysis. The themes and sub-themes identified were: Settling issues; Perceptions of understanding of mental health issues (help-seeking attitudes toward mental health issues; the need for CALD community education); perceived barriers to accessing and utilising mental health services in Victoria (socio-cultural and language barriers; stigma, labelling and discrimination; knowledge and experience of accessing health facilities); experience with mental health services and professionals. Community participation, mental health professional education and robust research regarding the mental health needs of CALD people are some of the recommended strategies to improve access and utilisation of mental health services in Victoria. The current study can contribute to the existing knowledge, understanding, practice and quality improvement as it vividly portrays the issues of various CALD communities in Victoria. The findings of this study imply that CALD MH service users and their families are likely to benefit in terms of improved service assessment and quality of MH care and equity when MHNs undertake CC training and bring that into their practice.

“Come and share your story and make everyone cry”: complicating service user educator storytelling in mental health professional education

It has become relatively common practice within health professional education to invite people who have used mental health and social care services (or service user educators) to share their stories with health professional learners and students. This paper reports on findings from a postcritical ethnographic study of the practice of service user involvement (SUI), in which we reflexively inquired into conceptualizations of service user educators’ knowledge contributions to health professional education in the accounts of both service user- and health professional educators. This research was conducted in response to recent calls for greater scrutiny surrounding the risks, challenges, and complexities inherent in involving service users in health professional education spaces. ‘Story/telling’ was identified as a pronounced overarching construct in our analysis, which focuses on participants’ reports of both the obvious and more subtle tensions and complexities they experience in relation to storytelling as a predominant tool or approach to SUI. Our findings are presented as three distinct, yet overlapping, themes related to these complexities or tensions: (a) performative expectations; (b) the invisible work of storytelling; and (c) broadening conceptualizations of service user educators’ knowledge. Our findings and discussion contribute to a growing body of literature which problematizes the uncritical solicitation of service user educators’ stories in health professional education and highlights the need for greater consideration of the emotional and epistemic labour expected of those who are invited to share their stories. This paper concludes with generative recommendations and reflexive prompts for health professional educators seeking to engage service user educators in health professional education through the practice of storytelling.

Mental Health in Uganda and Canada: A Descriptive Case Study of the Issue and Recommendations for Improved Mental Health

Mental health is a crucial part of overall wellbeing. Canada’s mental health system has progressed over the last decade but still has room for improvement. In comparison, developing countries, such as Uganda, have not shown the same progression with their mental health systems. The embedded experience, together with expert consultations in the field, was conducted over several months at a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) specialized hospital, the Joint Clinical Research Center (JCRC) in Kampala, Uganda on the topic of mental health systems. The observations and consultations were thematically analyzed into four main themes: cultural attitudes towards mental illness, the interconnectedness of childhood HIV and mental health, a gap in education for mental health professionals to become certified, and barriers to addressment of mental health issues at the JCRC. The main barriers for Ugandans seeking professional treatment were also identified, which included the accessibility and availability of professional treatment. Local solutions are outlined, as well as recommendations for improvements and future research.

'It is meant to be heart rather than head'; International perspectives of teaching from lived experience in mental health nursing programs.

Consumer participation is a clear expectation of contemporary mental health policy. Most activity has concentrated in direct service delivery, and academic roles for mental health consumers have been slow to establish. An international project was undertaken to implement and evaluate meaningful consumer involvement in mental health nursing education. A learning module was co-produced between 'Experts by Experience' (drawing on experience of mental distress and service use) and Mental Health Nurse Academics. This qualitative exploratory study aimed to capture how Experts by Experience perceive their contribution. Interviews were undertaken with Experts by Experience who delivered the learning module. Data were analysed thematically and subsequently interpreted with Critical Social Theory. Two main themes emerged from the findings: 'there wasn't a barrier' described how personal narratives enhanced relationships between Experts by Experience and students; and 'made the human being visible', described their experiences of allowing students to see the person behind a diagnosis. These findings suggest Experts by Experience teaching is valuable and potentially a tool in redressing stigma. Addressing poor public perceptions could attract higher numbers of quality practitioners to mental health and meet identified workforce shortages. The findings presented here strengthen the evidence base for Expert by Experience roles in mental health professional education. These findings can be considered in international curricula reviews and aid progress towards a more socio-political, humanistic focus in mental health nursing, congruent with rights-based reform agendas.

Researchers Sum Up Current Knowledge of Bipolar Disorder, Call for More Study

Researchers Sum Up Current Knowledge of Bipolar Disorder, Call for More Study

Attitudes of mental health professionals towards service user involvement.

Patient-centred care and user involvement in healthcare services are much emphasised globally. This study was the first step in a multicentre research project in Finland to improve service users' and carers' opportunities to be more involved in mental health services. The aim of the study was to assess attitudes of professionals towards service user involvement. The data were collected via an online questionnaire from 1069 mental health professionals in four hospital districts. Altogether, 351 professionals responded. Data were analysed using appropriate statistical methods. According to the results, attitudes of healthcare professionals were more positive towards service users' involvement in their own treatment than in other levels of services. There were also differences in gender, age groups, working places and experiences in the attitudes of professionals concerning service users' involvement in their own treatment. These should be taken into account in the future when planning education for mental health professionals. In spite of governmental guidance on service user involvement and the growing body of knowledge of the benefits associated with it, change in attitudes towards user involvement is slow. Special attention should be paid to the attitudes of professionals working in inpatient care and of those with less working experience.

Learning from stories of mental distress in occupational therapy education

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe processes of learning from personal experiences of mental distress when mental health service users participate in occupational therapy education with tutors and students who have also had experiences of mental distress. Design/methodology/approach A post-structural theoretical perspective was applied to stories which emerged from the research process. Semi-structured group and individual interviews were used with three service users, three students and three tutors (including the author) who had all had, at some time in their lives, experiences of mental distress. Findings Stories based on previously hidden personal experiences of mental distress began to shift dominant understandings. Further, as educators, service users challenged whose authority it is to speak about mental distress and permitted different narrative positions for students and tutors. However, technologies of power and technologies of self of powerful discourses in professional education continued to disqualify and exclude personal knowledges. Learning from stories requires a critical approach to storytelling to expose how hidden power relations maintain some knowledges as dominant. Further, learning requires narrative work, which was often hidden and unaccounted for, to navigate complex and contradictory positions in learning. Social implications Although storytelling based on personal experience can help develop a skilled and healthy mental health workforce, its impact will be limited without changes in classrooms, courses and higher education which support learning at the margins of personal/professional and personal/political learning. Originality/value Learning from stories of mental distress requires conditions which take account of the hidden practices which operate in mental health professional education.

RISK ASSESSMENT OF SUICIDE IN CLINICAL PRACTICE

Suicide is a global public health problem. Its management in clinical practice is complex and challenging .Studies show about 26% suicide in mental health system. Out of these, 14% commit suicide during hospital stay; about 50 - 90% have at least one psychiatric diagnosis. 60 - 70% of patients are hospitalized due to an attempt or potential crisis, about 15 - 20% attempt suicide prior to admission. Suicide is also common in post-discharge period. Every psychiatrist on an average loses atleast on client due to suicide in an average span of 20 years of practice. In about 70% of cases, suicide behavior is there as on for hospitalization in acute settings. Continuous training and skill development are two of the most important measures in clinical practice for dealing with suicide behavior. High suicide rates are reported in prodromal stage, acute illness, post-hospitalization and soon after discharge in the community. A clinician faces challenging situations while determining the level of care and referral for a patient with a high suicide potential. There is continued struggle amongst clinicians for decision- making in regards to the need for hospitalization, level of monitoring, voluntary status, and time of discharge. It is generally agreed that suicide is difficult to predict and prevent; however, in order to develop clinical excellence and offer a standard of care, continued education and knowledge translation for bringing research into practice is the least that can be done. Inspite of this need, continued education for mental health professionals and psychiatrists in-training remains limited.

Consumer involvement in the tertiary‐level education of mental health professionals: A systematic review

A systematic review of the published work on consumer involvement in the education of health professionals was undertaken using the PRISMA guidelines. Searches of the CINAHL, MEDLINE, and PsychINFO electronic databases returned 487 records, and 20 met the inclusion criteria. Further papers were obtained through scanning the reference lists of those articles included from the initial published work search (n = 9) and contacting researchers in the field (n = 1). Thirty papers (representing 28 studies) were included in this review. Findings from three studies indicate that consumer involvement in the education of mental health professionals is limited and variable across professions. Evaluations of consumer involvement in 16 courses suggest that students gain insight into consumers' perspectives of: (i) what life is like for people with mental illness; (ii) mental illness itself; (iii) the experiences of admission to, and treatment within, mental health services; and (iv) how these services could be improved. Some students and educators, however, raised numerous concerns about consumer involvement in education (e.g. whether consumers were pursuing their own agendas, whether consumers' views were representative). Evaluations of consumer involvement in education are limited in that their main focus is on the perceptions of students. The findings of this review suggest that public policy expectations regarding consumer involvement in mental health services appear to be slowly affecting the education of mental health professionals. Future research needs to focus on determining the effect of consumer involvement in education on the behaviours and attitudes of students in healthcare environments.

Phenomenological Pedagogy in Higher Education of Mental Health Workers

This article describes the use of phenomenological pedagogy in the higher education of mental health workers. The mental health field is an immensely complex professional field. To create access, the conventional education of mental health professionals compartmentalizes the field according to traditional professional boundaries. Personal–professional expertise and user preference are thereby lost. Such personal experience is privileged in a pedagogy based on Giorgi’s descriptive phenomenological method. Students learn systematically to describe a mental health phenomenon of their interest and reflect on this using each other’s professional insights as well as relevant research literature. Phenomenological description and reflection are repeated several times in the curriculum. Kegan’s subject–object theory of adult development explains how this repetition may support transformation of insight in rather than an accumulation of information about mental health work. The complexity of the mental health field thus emerges as a source of knowledge to exploit rather than merely a rugged landscape to navigate.

Understanding the value of the arts in the education of mental health professionals: Georg Lukács, Samuel Beckett and the aesthetic category of specific particularity

The manner in which the arts can enhance the practical, therapeutic concerns of mental health professionals is becoming well established in the health care literature. What gets discussed less frequently, however, are those aesthetic frameworks that propose to give an account of the possible 'meaning' and 'purpose' of art. In response, this paper will elucidate the aesthetic theory of the Hungarian philosopher Georg Lukács and will suggest that his concept of specific particularity enables an understanding of how art, and literature, poetry and drama in particular, can be employed as an educational resource that can contribute to the development of the 'emotional capabilities' of practitioners. However, insofar as Lukács' works are philosophically complex and challenging, his concept of specific particularity will be discussed within the context of Samuel Beckett's dramatic work Ohio Impromptu. In doing so, it will be suggested that Ohio Impromptu is not only productive for the elucidation of Lukács' aesthetics, but also illustrates how the arts provides practitioners with a valuable educative opportunity to engage with, and critically reflect upon, a multiplicity of affective dimensions, thereby enhancing the practitioner's ability to move towards achieving an empathic understanding of, and 'emotional resonance' with, those receiving mental health care.

Emotional Competencies in the Education of Mental Health Professionals

The results of empirical research suggest that the ability to assess, regulate, and utilize emotions is important to the performance of health professionals. Nevertheless, few professional programs adequately address this matter in their curricula. The main objective of the present research was to examine whether emotional intelligence and empathy could be improved in the traditional classroom, employing experiential teaching modes. Pre- and post-questionnaires were used to assess the emotional competencies of 165 social work undergraduate students. The results indicated an increase in emotional intelligence at the end of a course for advanced-year students. Overall empathy had not increased for both first- and advanced-year students. Further findings indicated significant correlation between empathy and emotional intelligence at the end of a course for advanced-year students compared with an insignificant correlation at the beginning of the course, whereas for first-year students, findings were in the opposite direction. Future research should focus on strategies for the teaching and professional training of social workers that promote emotional competencies.

The Impact of Mental Health Nursing Education on Undergraduate Nursing Students’ Attitudes to Consumer Participation

Consumer participation in all aspects of mental health service delivery, including the education of mental health professionals, is now a policy expectation in Australia. Whether education programs introducing nurses to mental health nursing lead to more favourable attitudes towards consumer participation is yet to be examined in pre-registration nursing programs in Australia. The current evaluation examined changes in scores for the Consumer Participation Survey for undergraduate nursing students (n = 68) in an Australian University. Data were analysed, using repeated measures t-test, to compare the pre- and post-test scores. There was a significant improvement in views on consumers participating as staff members. There were no statistically significant changes in attitudes towards consumer capacity and consumer involvement in care processes. Consumer participation in mental health care is now clearly articulated in Australian Government policy. For this to be successfully implemented a more comprehensive understanding of the ability of education to influence attitudes is required.

On the Brink of Disaster

In recent years mental health professionals have become increasingly aware of their role in ameliorating the impact of disaster and have begun to develop models for systematizing interventions. As many have noted, however, these models are largely based on clinical wisdom due to the dearth of empirical data on disaster and its social and psychological consequences. This article describes one model of disaster intervention, the Triple ABCD Model, and provides evidence-based guidelines for determining possible hazards and risks to both individuals and communities. Key factors considered are intentionality, predictability, time frame, degree of threat, location, extent of disruption and destruction, and timeliness and sustainability of the outside resources. Implications for practice include the importance of considering both individual and community factors in assessing risk and resilience; the need for mental health practitioners to exercise both clinical and community building skills when responding to disaster; and the importance of training and education of mental health professionals that include emergency planning and response with a focus on supporting the public at both an individual and community level.