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The mental health literacy of ASD among the Japanese public appears to be acceptable but there is still much room for improvement. Females showed more accurate knowledge, possibly reflecting gender roles. Some young people are not likely to know of the impact of psychiatric treatment, and seniors appear to be unaware of the current broadened recognition of ASD. Continued efforts to disseminate accurate information are required, particularly among males.

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We aimed to clarify the relationship between lay diagnoses and perspectives on schizophrenia regarding causes, coping strategies, treatments, prognosis with and without the help of specialists. Our study sample was 500 adults in Japan. Participants read a vignette that depicted moderate to severe schizophrenic symptoms and yielded lay diagnoses. They also expressed their perspectives on the cause of the status in the vignette and coping strategies. We examined the relationship between lay diagnoses and the perspectives. Participants labeled the vignette as 'stress' held low expectations for the effectiveness of mental health professionals and psychiatric treatment. To enhance mental health literacy, it is important to help people distinguish a mental illness from mere stress. Lay diagnoses do not necessary have to be detailed, as long as people recognize a situation as an illness.

Recent neuropsychological studies have found deficits in the verbal memory of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Difficulties in using organizational strategies were presumed to be the cause. Preceding studies did not look closely at their ability of feature detection of stimuli. Efficiency in feature detection is crucial to use the attributes or feature of stimuli as a clue in memory tasks. We examined verbal memory deficit and the ability of feature detection in Japanese patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder. We administered Iddon et al.'s verbal strategy task to 16 patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder and 16 healthy controls. The feature of Iddon et al.'s task was to include a phase that showed subjects the semantic structure of the task and timed each subject's analysis of the organization. Patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder were slower to classify stimuli words into semantic categories than were healthy controls. They recalled and recognized significantly fewer words than did healthy controls. In recall tasks, they used less organizational strategy than did healthy controls. Patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder were slower to analyze features of stimuli words than were healthy controls. This slowness possibly contributes to impaired memory performances that patients showed during the encoding process, since the efficient use of organizational strategies in limited time is difficult for them.

Clinical pathways have been defined as an optimal sequencing and timing of interventions by staff for a particular diagnosis or procedure, designed to better utilize resources, maximize quality of care and minimize delays. The aim of the present study was to develop a clinical pathway for long-term inpatients with schizophrenia. A review of clinical records was conducted for 17 patients with schizophrenia who had stayed in one psychiatric hospital for >1 year, and who remained in the community >3 months after hospital discharge. A review of clinical routine records was conducted. The discharge process of each patient was expressed in a clinical pathway around phases and care components. They were integrated into one clinical pathway. The discharge process was divided into assessment and goalsetting, preparation, and discharge phases. Care components included discharge planning, daily activity, living environment, health management, and basic life skills. Discharge planning was an important care component that was combined with all three phases. A clinical pathway was developed from reviewing past patient records, and discharge planning was found to be an important care component, which was combined with all three phases: assessment and goalsetting, preparation, and discharge. Further study is needed to examine the validity of the pathway for use in other hospitals.