The benefits and harms of community treatment orders for people diagnosed with psychiatric illnesses: A rapid umbrella review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

Aims: Community treatment orders have been introduced in many jurisdictions with increasing use over time. We conducted a rapid umbrella review to synthesise the quantitative and qualitative evidence from systematic reviews and/or meta-analyses of their potential harms and benefits.

Methods: A systematic search of Medline, PubMed, Embase and PsycINFO for relevant systematic reviews and/or meta-analyses.

The NSW Emergency Psychiatry Network.

Emergency Psychiatry is evolving. In an environment that lacks a clear evidence base, and where a constellation of factors is driving up Emergency Department presentation rates and lengths of stay, several stakeholders are working towards and clamouring for change. With the goal of collaborating with such parties, we believe Emergency Psychiatrists should position themselves to establish and advocate for best-practice change in culture, research, clinical care and training, and funding in the provision of mental health crisis care.

Algorithm for the use of the Guardianship Act, the Mental Health Act and the Public Health Act in emergency departments in New South Wales.

Objective: To address frequently asked questions regarding the use of the Guardianship Act, the Mental Health Act and the Public Health Act within New South Wales EDs and present an algorithm to guide the use of this legislation.

Methods: An ED-specific algorithm was developed for the use of the three pieces of legislation. Then an emergency psychiatrist and an emergency physician reviewed the algorithm with ED staff to understand its usefulness and where further detail was required.

Perceived Burdensomeness and the Wish for Hastened Death in Persons With Severe and Persistent Mental Illness.

In several European countries, medical assistance in dying (MAID) is no longer confined to persons with a terminal prognosis but is also available to those suffering from persistent and unbearable mental illness. To date, scholarly discourse on MAID in this population has been dominated by issues such as decision-making capacity, uncertainty as to when a disease is incurable, stigmatization, isolation, and loneliness. However, the issue of perceived burdensomeness has received little attention.

Issues pertaining to expert evidence and the reasoning about punishment in a neuroscience-based sentencing appeal.

In this paper, we focus on, a significant Australian sentencing appeal in which, after hearing expert evidence pertaining to cognitive function, brain scans, and neuropsychological testing, the Court imposed a less severe sentence than that originally imposed. Our aim is to produce an interdisciplinary critical analysis of the decision, and we approach this by analysing the judicial comments on the evidence pertaining to the offender's mental condition, and the reasoning about punishment. We conclude that the Court's inferences about frontal lobe damage and likely dementia are contestable, and the reasoning about mitigation of punishment based on these questionable inferences could have been improved by a focus on sentencing's retributive aim.

Community treatment orders: towards a new research agenda.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to report on a half-day multi-stakeholder symposium on community treatment orders (CTOs) hosted by the Melbourne Social Equity Institute (MSEI), which identified research gaps and opportunities, and produced an agreed agenda for future CTO research.

Methods: The MSEI convened a symposium for 22 experts in CTO research to discuss research priorities in this field in Australasia. An independent moderator elicited views and recommendations and produced a report detailing possible research projects.

The use of community treatment orders in competent patients is not justified.

Empirical evidence for the effectiveness of community treatment orders (CTOs) is at best mixed. We examine CTOs through the prism of human rights and discrimination, bearing the evidence in mind, and argue that a necessary condition for their use is that a person lacks decision-making capacity.