Bringing together treatment and referral advice from existing guidelines, this text aims to improve access to services and recognition of common mental health disorders in adults and provide advice on the principles that need to be adopted to develop appropriate referral and local care pathways.
Ask for a definition of primary care, and you are likely to hear as many answers as there are health care professionals in your survey. Primary Care fills this gap with a detailed definition already adopted by professional organizations and praised at recent conferences. This volume makes recommendations for improving primary care, building its organization, financing, infrastructure, and knowledge baseâ€"as well as developing a way of thinking and acting for primary care clinicians. Are there enough primary care doctors? Are they merely gatekeepers? Is the traditional relationship between patient and doctor outmoded? The committee draws conclusions about these and other controversies in a comprehensive and up-to-date discussion that covers: The scope of primary care. Its philosophical underpinnings. Its value to the patient and the community. Its impact on cost, access, and quality. This volume discusses the needs of special populations, the role of the capitation method of payment, and more. Recommendations are offered for achieving a more multidisciplinary education for primary care clinicians. Research priorities are identified. Primary Care provides a forward-thinking view of primary care as it should be practiced in the new integrated health care delivery systemsâ€"important to health care clinicians and those who train and employ them, policymakers at all levels, health care managers, payers, and interested individuals.
This two-volume encyclopedia examines the social, cultural, and political dimensions of mental illness in America. Americans are becoming more cognizant of the importance of mental wellness as incidents of bullying, random shootings, and eating disorders pervade our society. This comprehensive resource provides an expansive overview of mental health and illness in the United States, analyzing the current state of the health care system, and objectively examining the therapies and treatment options traditionally recommended by the medical community. Mental Health Care Issues in America: An Encyclopedia covers major mental disorders, theories, and treatments; delves into major advances and ongoing controversies in the field; and shares the most current research on the subject in varied disciplines, including ethnic studies, criminal justice, education, and social work. Each entry features a clear definition of the issue along with a brief review of its history. Additionally, the author situates the material within the mental health field, as well as within society in general. Organized alphabetically, topics include advocacy, legal issues, media portrayals of psychological disorders, and homelessness and mental illness.
Written by many of the world's leading practitioners in the delivery of mental health care, this book clearly presents the results of scientific research about care and treatment for people with mental illness in community settings. The book presents clear accounts of what is known, extensively referenced, with critical appraisals of the strength of the evidence and the robustness of the conclusions that can be drawn. Improving Mental Health Care adds to our knowledge of the challenge and the solutions and stands to make a significant contribution to global mental health.
A Manifesto for Mental Health presents a radically new and distinctive outlook that critically examines the dominant ‘disease-model’ of mental health care. Incorporating the latest findings from both biological neuroscience and research into the social determinants of psychological problems, Peter Kinderman offers a contemporary, biopsychosocial, alternative. He warns that the way we care for people with mental health problems is creating a hidden human rights emergency and he proposes a new vision for the future of health organisations across the globe. The book highlights persuasive evidence that our mental health and wellbeing depend largely on the society in which we live, on the things happen to us, and on how we learn to make sense of and respond to those events. Kinderman proposes a rejection of invalid diagnostic labels, practical help rather than medication, and a recognition that distress is usually an understandable human response to life's challenges. Offering a serious critique of establishment thinking, A Manifesto for Mental Health provides a well-crafted demonstration of how, with scientific rigour and empathy, a revolution in mental health care is not only highly desirable, it is also entirely achievable.
Integrated primary care, now instituted in many areas of the country, is both the service that integrates medical and mental health primary care and the practice of defining the problem brought by a patient without using "medical" or "mental" as inevitable distinctions. This volume makes the case for this approach, shows how to implement it, and describes some successful programs. It will be attractive to medical managers, plan administrators, physicians, and mental health providers.
The past half-century has been marked by major changes in the treatment of mental illness: important advances in understanding mental illnesses, increases in spending on mental health care and support of people with mental illnesses, and the availability of new medications that are easier for the patient to tolerate. Although these changes have made things better for those who have mental illness, they are not quite enough. In Better But Not Well, Richard G. Frank and Sherry A. Glied examine the well-being of people with mental illness in the United States over the past fifty years, addressing issues such as economics, treatment, standards of living, rights, and stigma. Marshaling a range of new empirical evidence, they first argue that people with mental illness—severe and persistent disorders as well as less serious mental health conditions—are faring better today than in the past. Improvements have come about for unheralded and unexpected reasons. Rather than being a result of more effective mental health treatments, progress has come from the growth of private health insurance and of mainstream social programs—such as Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, housing vouchers, and food stamps—and the development of new treatments that are easier for patients to tolerate and for physicians to manage. The authors remind us that, despite the progress that has been made, this disadvantaged group remains worse off than most others in society. The "mainstreaming" of persons with mental illness has left a policy void, where governmental institutions responsible for meeting the needs of mental health patients lack resources and programmatic authority. To fill this void, Frank and Glied suggest that institutional resources be applied systematically and routinely to examine and address how federal and state programs affect the well-being of people with mental illness.
Clinical Management in Mental Health Services is a practical guide to the day to day operational management of mental health teams. It explores both the theoretical aspects of management plus strategies for dealing with the wide range of management issues faced by managers working in mental health. It looks at issues such as leading a multidisciplinary team, Communication and Public Relations, the importance of clinical supervision, evidence-based practice, and quality assurance. It addresses the issue of workload management, clinical information management, how to plan a budget and how to manage stress.
