Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Living With Schizophrenia: A Family Perspective Article in Online Journal of Issues in Nursing at Medscape - "The lifetime emotional, social, and financial consequences experienced by individuals with schizophrenia have significant effects on their families. Family responses to having a family member with schizophrenia include: care burden, fear and embarrassment about illness signs and symptoms, uncertainty about course of the disease, lack of social support, and stigma. Study findings about families in which parents are hostile, critical, or overly involved are equivocal about whether this negative environment contributes to patient relapse. This review summarizes the studies related to the family responses and emotional environment of families who have a member with schizophrenia."  
  

Public have prejudiced attitude toward ECT Brief article at Psychiatry Matters based on a study published in Psychiatry Research - "Having a prejudice toward electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) appears to be a 'uniform attitude' among the general population, probably as a result of misconceptions about the technique, survey findings show. 'Although its efficacy and safety have been demonstrated for many psychiatric conditions, and most patients are enduringly satisfied with the results, ECT has a negative image in the media,' observe Christoph Lauber and colleagues from the Psychiatric University Hospital in Zurich, Switzerland."  
  

Neighborhood Residence and Mental Health Problems of 5- to 11-Year-Olds  Abstract of a study in Archives of General Psychiatry - "The percentages of children above the clinical threshold were 21.5%, 18.3%, and 11.5% in neighborhoods of low, medium, and high socioeconomic status, respectively. A substantial proportion of variance in children’s total internalizing scores (intraclass correlation, 11.1%) was attributable to between-neighborhood differences. Concentrated disadvantage was associated with more mental health problems and a higher number of children in the clinical range, after accounting for family demographic characteristics, maternal depression, and earlier child mental health scores. Neighborhood collective efficacy and organizational participation were associated with better mental health, after accounting for neighborhood concentrated disadvantage. Collective efficacy mediated the effect of concentrated disadvantage. "