The Station Community Mental Health Centre Inc: nurturing and empowering.

Introduction: Consumer-driven community mental health services play an important role in rehabilitation, recovery, and advocacy in rural and remote Australia. The origins of services often lie in the need to provide options for people with mental illness and their carers when there is a lack of on-the-ground support. This article adds to the information about the strengths and limitations of consumer-driven mental health services by presenting the findings of an evaluation of The Station Inc.

Potential of chemotherapy-herb interactions in adult cancer patients.

Goals Of Work: The purpose of this study was to examine the specific herbs or vitamins (HV) used by patients receiving chemotherapy. Specifically, the following aspects were investigated: (1) HV use among adult cancer patients receiving chemotherapy, (2) the frequency of potential chemotherapy-HV interactions, (3) communication patterns between oncologists and their cancer patients taking HV, and (4) patients' reactions to two hypothetical scenarios of chemotherapy-HV interactions.

Patients And Methods: Adult cancer patients receiving chemotherapy at a university-based outpatient clinic over a 1-month period were sent a validated eight-page questionnaire regarding the use of complementary/alternative medicine, focusing on HV use.