Clinicians should assess the effect of stigma as part of the standard work-up for patients with mental illness, and help patients and family members reduce the effect of stigma on their lives.

Ideas about what constitutes recovery need to take account of patients' views and experience in order to emphasize therapeutic optimism rather than pessimism, and to inform treatment contexts and the views of medical staff.

No abstract

This article reports on a sample of 147 women under age 35 living in rural areas in China who had attempted suicide and were treated in the emergency room of hospitals in four different locations. The interview instrument took 2 to 3 hours to complete and included audiotaped in-depth interviews with the patient and family members (separately); detailed evaluation of the circumstances surrounding the attempt, life events, and the family environment; and a formal psychiatric evaluation by an attending-level psychiatrist. Overwhelmingly, the method used by the attempters was poisoning with highly lethal pesticides and organic fertilizers. The women's suicidal behavior was characterized by high levels of impulsivity; little effort to seclude themselves before and after ingesting poison; and low rates of mental illness, including depression. Detailed suggestions are made about ways to implement suicide prevention strategies within the particular social and economic context of China.

Further research directions are suggested as well as ways to change attitudes to the inclusion of medication in recovery.

This article is based on 37 interviews with patients and family members in a psychiatric hospital in Hubei, the People's Republic of China. The main goal was to investigate the explanatory models that families used in understanding the causes of mental illness. Case material is provided to illustrate some of the issues concerning family dynamics and problems. Families use a holistic framework for understanding psychiatric disturbance. Doctors’ explanatory framework is largely medical and they show no interest in family relationships. Equally, families make it clear that they need more information and support from medical practitioners, which is not forthcoming.

This article describes a prospective blinded outcome study of a vocational social skills training program developed in Hong Kong for people affected by chronic schizophrenia. The aim was to improve their ability to find and keep a job. Participants were randomly assigned to three groups: a social skills training group with followup support, a social skills training group without followup support, and a comparison group who received standard after-care treatment. Participants who had participated in either of the training groups statistically outperformed those in the comparison group. Those receiving the training plus followup were statistically much more successful at finding and keeping a job than participants in either of the other two groups. A comparatively small amount of followup contact (a monthly group meeting or phone call) for 3 months after the training finished had a very significant effect on participants' success rate.

Over the past decade, great concern has been expressed about the high suicide rates in China, especially among women and young women in particular. However, most of the information that has been presented has considered macro-level data and speculated on why women are so vulnerable to self-harm. This article presents the detailed story of one village woman who killed herself and suggests that motives and behavior are more complex than the cultural script and statistics suggest. Although depression is said to be commonly present in people who kill themselves in Western countries, this may not be the case in China.