Community mental health team management is superior to standard care in promoting greater acceptance of treatment, and may also reduce hospital admission and avoid deaths by suicide. This model of care is effective and deserves encouragement.
The homeless mentally disordered defendant facing minor charges poses considerable problems regarding appropriate disposal. Psychiatric assessment may be required in order to facilitate the court's decision, but this is often available only after remand in custody. A psychiatric assessment service based at two inner-London magistrates' courts is described. Over 18 months, 201 defendants were referred. They were predominantly male, single, and of no fixed abode, suffering from serious psychiatric disorder; these defendants had often received previous in-patient treatment, frequently as detained patients. They typically were recidivists charged with minor offences. Following initial assessment, 25% were admitted to hospital, 50% were released, and 25% returned to custody. The Crown Prosecution Service discontinued 29% of cases. For those admitted directly to hospital, the mean (s.d.) time from arrest to hospital admission was 5.8 (6.8) days, significantly quicker than with prison-based assessments.
Studies which have examined the perception of emotion by schizophrenic patients have produced conflicting results, an outcome which may, in part, be due to difficulties in presenting a realistic portrayal of emotion. This study exposed 32 schizophrenic patients in remission and ten controls to five videotaped scenes of emotional situations played by actors. The schizophrenic patients were divided into three groups, namely those living with high-EE relatives, those living with low-EE relatives and those living alone, in order to test the hypothesis that patients in a high-EE environment are less able to identify emotionally charged situations. Measures of electrodermal activity and self-ratings of tension were recorded concomitantly. The schizophrenic patients in all groups were as adept at identifying emotions as were the controls. There was no difference between the groups in electrodermal activity and subjective tension for all video scenes, except for the one which portrayed the only pleasant interaction; the high-EE group was significantly more aroused on both measures, which were independent of each other.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.