Suchergebnisse

Background: Most studies agree that mental illness brings a heavy objective and subjective burden of care on the family and especially the caregivers. However, very little attention has been paid to the wider context in which this burden is shaped and sustained.Material: In-depth interviews were conducted with 11 caregivers in Hong Kong and Taiwan and subsequent analysis identified four major themes: mystical knowledge beyond understanding, persistent self-blame and lay explanation, inertia of caregivers and non-responsive service system, and unsatisfying encounters with medical staff.Discussion: The results of the study indicate that these families did not get the services they needed. In spite of recounting many system failures, most respondents attributed their situation to tragedy and misfortune at personal and family levels. Such a discourse is closely connected to a wider context of health and social care. The Hong Kong subjects complained more, felt more helpless, and had more persistent self-blame and lay explanation than the Taiwanese subjects.Conclusions: To reduce such experiences, this paper calls for inclusive policies for the family, new education strategies and reflections on the roles of mental health professionals in empowerment and advocacy beyond conventional treatment, counseling and education.

Suicide is a public health issue that impacts a nation's resident and non-resident populations alike. Singapore has one of the largest non-resident (work permit holder) populations in the world, yet very little attention has been given to examining suicide in this population. The current study examined the case materials of all 303 non-resident completed suicides in Singapore in the period January 2011 to December 2014. Their basic profiles were compared with that of the 1,507 resident cases in the same period. A sample of 30 death notes written by non-residents were randomly selected and thematically analyzed to supplement the descriptive findings and discussion. Results showed that suicides were highest among males, those aged 21–35 years old, and South Asians. Most non-resident suicide cases did not have known physical or mental health issues, prior suicide attempts, or suicide notes. Suicide decedents from South Asia and Europe most frequently used hanging, while jumping was most common among decedents from other regions. Relationship and health problems emerged as the top two suspected triggers for suicide based on our analysis of the suicide notes. The unique situation of working abroad may increase non-residents' vulnerability in general, while adverse life events such as relationship and health issues may be too overwhelming to bear, especially when support services are not readily available and accessible. The results have implications for suicide prevention among this neglected group of people who choose to work in foreign lands.

Children living with a parent with mental illness experience challenges as some may take on the roles of their parents. Physical distancing restrictions introduced because of the COVID-19 pandemic means that many children will spend more time at home which could heighten the impact of parental mental illness. For many of these children, engaging in activities with peers provides them a sort of normal life outside their family environment. However, face-to-face interactions with others outside the family may be limited under existing public health protocols. Moreover, services for children in families where there is parental mental illness may also be limited considering limitations placed on people's movements to reduce the rate of COVID-19 infections. This opinion article draws on existing research and practitioner knowledge to suggest how social workers can continue supporting these children and their families during the COVID-19 pandemic. Support, in the form of online interventions, have been recommended to meet the needs of children during the pandemic period. Online support is timely because it is easily accessible and often does not require face-to-face interactions. Social workers and other human service professionals should be able to adapt existing online services to the needs of the children which they serve.

The emergence of COVID-19 pandemic has brought untold hardship across the globe. Developed nations have taken relatively commendable actions to quell its impact on livelihood and most have also included social workers in the frontline due to their expertise in working with vulnerable populations. Same cannot be said of developing nations particularly Nigeria who hurriedly copied the measures adopted by the developed nations without carefully considering her peculiarities. Given Nigeria's high poverty rate prior to and even higher during the pandemic as well as the few available resources, it is important that Nigerian social workers should be called upon as frontline workers with regards to the welfare of the vulnerable and the psychosocial well-being of infected persons and their families. Instead, Nigeria has totally ignored the importance of social workers and palliatives have been stolen by those tasked with distribution while the psychosocial well-being of affected persons has been left to fate.

Aims: To generate a short version of a newly developed inventory that adopted the conceptual framework of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) consensus statement on recovery. Methods: Through Rasch analysis, this paper presents how this recovery inventory (SAMHSA-RIC), with its original 111 items, can be reduced to a much shorter version with only 41 items. Results: Although internal consistency is slightly lowered because of item reduction, the short version maintains satisfactory and significant correlations with quality of life measures. Overall, the canonical correlation between the scale and WHOQOL-BREF was virtually the same, with only a 0.2% decrease. Conclusions: SAMHSA-RIC (short version) has strong potential to become a general tool for evaluating rehabilitative services for persons with persistent and severe mental illness. A validation study of the short version with clinical samples is warranted.

Little is known about how social work supervisors can be equipped and supported. A qualitative evaluation of a supervision of supervisory practice (SOSp) training programme with nine supervisors with 2 years of experience was done. Benefits for the supervisors were the application of knowledge and skills that improved the supervisory practice, and the opportunity to receive feedback. However, lack of time was a major obstacle for quality supervision. Supervisees reported experiencing a more collaborative supervision and an increase in confidence and perception of competence in case management. This exploratory study highlights the importance of developing competencies in the education and support functions of supervision.

AbstractPersons with concurrent mental health and substance use disorders often do not participate actively in society and remain marginalized. The promotion of social inclusion is important for the care of persons with concurrent disorders. To measure social inclusion, the Social and Communities Opportunities Profile (SCOPE) was developed, followed by its mini version for English-speaking people in Singapore. In Norway, there is no instrument available to measure social inclusion. Thus, the aim was cross-cultural adaptation of SCOPE Mini for persons with concurrent disorders. The Norwegian adaptation was performed using the systematic approach recommended by Beaton et al. After a forward–backward translation, the Norwegian SCOPE-Mini was pre-tested among 30 persons with a concurrent mental health and substance use disorder in three areas to check its psychometric properties. To evaluate comprehensibility and applicability, participants were asked five open questions. The Norwegian cross-cultural adaptation of SCOPE Mini showed acceptable psychometric properties and was considered comparable to the original version. The results of the pre-test showed no linguistic inconsistency, but some indications of the necessity of semantic adaptation regarding the cultural context and persons with concurrent disorders. The Norwegian SCOPE Mini may be a practical tool for health professionals, social workers, and researchers to measure social inclusion among a vulnerable group such as persons with a concurrent mental health and substance use disorder. However, given the relatively small sample size in our study, further research on the validity and reliability of the instrument is recommended.