With the growth of community support programs the role of the state psychiatric hospital has changed. Reduced funding levels have resulted in overcrowding, inadequate staffing and ineffective programming. In order to improve the quality of care and introduce more psychiatric rehabilitation-oriented activities into hospital programming, a large state hospital and a state health sciences university have entered into a time-limited collaborative partnership. This paper describes that partnership and its attempt to improve staff competencies, enhance service delivery and integrate a more rehabilitation-oriented philosophy of care into the hospital through undergraduate education, in-service training, program development, staff mentoring and organizational change activities.
This article examines the development of Psychiatric Rehabilitation (PsyR) beliefs, goals, and practices among students from different academic programs within the same university. Undergraduate and graduate students were studied. Students educated and working at psychiatric hospitals were compared to those on college campuses and in the community. The relationship of these attitudes to both affective and career commitment was examined. A cross-sectional design examining student attitudes at different intervals in their academic career was employed. Among undergraduate students, the number of PsyR credits earned was positively correlated with the development of the PsyR attitudes (r ¼ .51). This was true for both hospital and community based students. The largest growth in PsyR beliefs and practices was apparent after completion of clinical field placements. PsyR attitudes were also positively correlated with affective or emotional commitment to the field. A similar relationship between PsyR attitudes and affective and career commitment was found for graduate students. The number of graduate credits earned, however, was not associated with the development of PsyR attitudes, perhaps due to a ceiling effect.This article examines the effect of PsyR academic programming on students' understanding of the goals, beliefs, and practices of PsyR.
Although the aging inpatient population in state psychiatric hospitals is growing significantly, there are few examples of available training to improve staff knowledge and practice. The current article describes a 10-week training series developed through a university and psychiatric hospital collaboration. Training was attended by 135 direct care nursing and rehabilitation staff and focused on improving aging awareness, problem solving, using person-centered therapeutic techniques, and engaging older adults. Staff reported improvements in therapeutic techniques, knowledge, concrete strategies for providing care, and stress management skills. Specialized training to improve understanding of aging processes and communication with older adults may also improve inpatient staff knowledge and skills. As the aging inpatient population in state psychiatric hospitals continues to grow, future work should develop manualized training initiatives to address communication needs of older adults and intervention strategies that can be used by mental health nursing staff when working with this population. [Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services, 56(4), 12-16.].
The frequent treatment failures of patients with alcohol and drug-abuse disorders are often attributable to poor treatment choice. The absence from the literature of clinically relevant criteria for serving this population is noted. Four categories of patients are identified, and a diagnostic framework for the selection of drug-free treatments is proposed.
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