This study employed an independent-groups design (4 conditions) to investigate possible biases in the suicide risk perception of mental health professionals. Four hundred participants comprising doctors, nurses and social workers viewed a vignette describing a fictitious patient with a long-term mental illness. The case was presented as being drawn from a sample of twenty similar clinical case reports, of which 10 were associated with an outcome of suicide. The participant tasks were (i) to decide whether the presented vignette was one of those cases or not, and (ii) to provide an assessment of confidence in that decision. The 4 conditions were used to investigate whether the presence of an associated face, and the nature of the emotional state expressed by that face, affected the response profile. In fact, there were no significant differences between conditions, but there was a significant bias across all conditions towards associating the vignette with suicide, despite the base rate being pre-determined at 50%. The bias was more pronounced in doctors and in male respondents. Moreover, many participants indicated substantial confidence in their decisions. The results are discussed in terms of availability bias and over-confidence bias.
The positive rating of resilience indicated that the service is working in a manner consistent with a recovery orientation. The results will act as a benchmark to compare with both other EIP services and future performance.
Henderson Hospital is a therapeutic community offering treatment for personality disordered young adults. The community operates a unique system of selection, whereby a group of residents and staff jointly decide upon offering admission to new referrals. This study is a preliminary investigation examining, in part, the basis upon which the selection group makes its decision. A measure of symptomatic psychological distress (SCL-90) was completed by 156 selection candidates. Comparison of those candidates selected with those who were rejected showed no difference between groups in number of symptoms reported nor the degree of distress attributable to those symptoms. However, analysis of symptom sub-scale scores revealed that those subjects not selected scored significantly higher on measures of somatisation, obsessive-compulsive features and phobic anxiety. It could be argued that these three symptoms are indicative of a tendency to deny or avoid feeling emotional distress. We propose that at one level, the selection group may operate by identifying those candidates who are more able to verbalise their distress, i.e. those presumed most likely to benefit from the Therapeutic Community's psychotherapeutic approach.
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