Demographic and clinical profile of patients utilising a transitional care intervention in the Western Cape, South Africa.

Background: The World Health Organization's action plan for 2020 has identified the need for service-based data to motivate for more appropriate community-based services. To date, there is no published data from step-up or step-down facilities in South Africa.

Aim: To describe the demographic and clinical profile of all patients admitted to New Beginnings between 01 January 2011 and 31 December 2015.

Burnout and job satisfaction of nursing staff in a South African acute mental health setting.

Background: Psychiatric nurses constitute a fundamental part of the mental health care system in South Africa. However, high levels of burnout and job dissatisfaction among nursing staff have been associated with reduced empathy and quality of care, and poor service delivery. Stikland Psychiatric Hospital is a state psychiatric hospital situated in Belville and provides all levels of psychiatric care to a large part of the Cape metro region.

The rise of assertive community interventions in South Africa: a randomized control trial assessing the impact of a modified assertive intervention on readmission rates; a three year follow-up.

Background: Many countries have over the last few years incorporated mental health assertive interventions in an attempt to address the repercussions of deinstitutionalization. Recent publications have failed to duplicate the positive outcomes reported initially which has cast doubt on the future of these interventions. We previously reported on 29 patients from a developing country who completed 12 months in an assertive intervention which was a modified version of the international assertive community treatment model.

Initiation rites as a perceived stressor for Isixhosa males with schizophrenia.

Although traditional initiation forms a pivotal part of Xhosa culture, it may be a stressful life event for the individual. In this study, 75 Xhosa males diagnosed with schizophrenia were interviewed to examine their perceptions of the role of initiation in the onset and course of their illness. In all, eight patients (10.