Treatment lag on the way to the mental health clinic among Arab- and Jewish-Israeli patients.

Background: The early recognition and timely treatment of psychiatric disorders helps reduce suffering, prevents mental disabilities and makes interventions more cost-effective.

Objective: To examine treatment lag among Arab- and Jewish-Israelis applying to psychiatric clinics for the first time, and the association of this lag with selected socio-demographic and mental health-related variables.

Methods: 251 adult outpatients making their first-ever visit to a psychiatric clinic completed a self-administered questionnaire, including questions on the time elapsed since the onset of the current disorder, reasons for the treatment lag, source of referral, main complaints, current psychiatric problems (self-diagnosis), attitudes to psychiatric disorders and treatment, pathways to care, and standard sociodemographic information.

Emotional distress among first-time patients attending outpatient mental health clinics in Israel: an Arab-Jewish comparative study.

Background: Few studies have focused specifically on the role of ethnicity in emotional distress and symptoms among first-time psychiatric outpatients.

Methods: 251 first-time patients, aged 18-72 years, attending three outpatient mental health clinics in Israel, were surveyed. Three methods of case detection were used: a GHQ-12 score (equal or >3), self-reported symptoms (using a checklist) and a psychiatrist's provisional ICD-10 diagnosis.

Entering the well-guarded fortress: alternative practitioners in hospital settings.

There is a growing evidence that alternative health care practitioners and physicians are working together in collaborative patterns. The paper examines these collaborative patterns in hospital settings in Israel. On the theoretical level, the specific issues relate to theories concerning relationships between dominant institutional structures which enjoy the benefits of epistemological legitimacy as well as extensive, supportive social structures and groups of non-conformists who seek to attain many of the same goals by utilizing different methods based on other epistemologies.