Families play an important role in relapse-prevention following a person's first psychotic episode.To evaluate an open-ended family group intervention within a public adult mental health service, semi-structured interviews were conducted with: (1) carers who continually attended; (2) carers who attended once only; (3) carers who never attended; (4) case managers and (5) early psychosis clinicians. Benefits to group participation included: reduced isolation, sense of collective experience, opportunity to feel heard, reduced stigma and shame, increased knowledge about mental illness, and enhanced skills in supporting the care recipient. Barriers included: competing family and work commitments, applicability to own experiences of caring, discomfort with social situations and revealing and hearing emotions, and a belief that experiences are private. While attending the group increased knowledge, the benefits most emphasized were in the social connection with other carers and sharing one's story in a safe and reassuring environment.
The introduction of an integrated model of management within an area mental health service for patients with early psychosis contributed to significant reductions in admissions, involuntary status and use of a locked ward. The data suggests that enhanced treatment of early psychosis patients can be offered within generic services.
The evaluation demonstrates the efficacy of such a group and the importance of public mental health services in providing family interventions in first-episode psychosis care.
Whilst the original article was heavily referenced in our follow-up article and it was clear that we were performing a comparison with the original, the text of two sections of the Discussion (sections 4.2 and 4.3) in our article is almost identical to that in the article of Yung and colleagues and hence should have been placed in inverted commas with direct attribution. That we failed to do this we accept as an error on our behalf and apologise to all concerned in this regard. Melissa Petrakis, on behalf of all the authors.
Labelling of intravenous (IV) drug infusions in a non-uniform manner often leads to issues of risk of harm to patients and time / financial wasting. Ideally a straightforward, convenient and standardised method of labelling IV drug infusions should significantly reduce these risks. The Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (AAGBI), in conjunction with the Intensive Care Society, the Royal College of Anaesthetists and the Faculty of Accident and Emergency Medicine has previously published guidelines on syringe labelling in critical care areas in May 2003 1 and June 2004 2. These guidelines are based on a colour-coded labelling system primarily intended for syringes being used to administer drug boluses manually. All drugs with similar clinical actions are labelled in the same colour. This aims to minimise the risk of inadvertently administering a drug with different pharmacological actions in much the same way that gas cylinders in hospital have a colour-coding system. The University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust implemented this syringe labelling system across theatres and critical care areas and saw a reduction in drug errors as a result.
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