The Effects of Neuropsychiatric Symptom Clusters in People with Dementia on Family Caregiver Burden.

Background: Neuropsychiatric symptoms are a robust risk factor for caregiver burden in family dementia caregivers. By grouping these symptoms, clinical interpretations regarding neuropsychiatric symptoms may facilitated because different groups of symptoms may require a different approach for intervention, thereby reducing caregiver burden.

Objective: As clustering of neuropsychiatric symptoms could be clinically relevant, we aimed to explore the effects of these clusters on burden in family dementia caregivers.

Unraveling complexity in changing mental health care towards person-centered care.

Background: Mental health care (MHC) needs to shift towards person-centered care to better meet people's individual needs. Open Dialogue (OD) is well-aligned with this perspective and brings it into practice. This study focuses on exploring the change process within a pilot project involving three MHC teams as they transition to a person-centered OD practice.

Integrating technology in mental healthcare practice: A repeated cross-sectional survey study on professionals' adoption of Digital Mental Health before and during COVID-19.

As a consequence of the outbreak of the COVID-19 global pandemic in the spring of 2020, large-scale social distancing measures were implemented, resulting in the forced adoption of online or digital forms of psychological treatment. This sudden transition to digital care offered a unique opportunity to investigate if and how this experience impacted mental healthcare professionals' perceptions and use of Digital Mental Health tools. The current paper presents findings of a repeated cross-sectional study consisting of three iterations of a national online survey in the Netherlands.

Introducing Peer-supported Open Dialogue in changing mental health care.

The need to transform mental health care toward person-centered, recovery-based, and network-oriented care is recognized worldwide. Open Dialogue (OD) is seen as a hopeful approach in the context of this transformation and is introduced in countries around the globe. Five Dutch mental health care organizations spread over the Netherlands introduced the Peer-supported Open Dialogue (POD) approach, which adds an explicit role of peer-support workers to the OD approach.

Influence of Sense of Competence, Empathy and Relationship Quality on Burden in Dementia Caregivers: A 15 Months Longitudinal Study.

The aim is to explore the trajectory of caregiver burden and how this relates to caregiver and contextual factors in community-dwelling dyads. At baseline, 201 family caregivers were included. The multidimensional construct of family caregiver burden and the effects of sense of competence, empathy, and quality of the relationship on this burden were assessed over 15 months using semi-structured interviews and questionnaires.

Addressing victimization to enable societal participation in flexible assertive community treatment: A process evaluation of the implementation of a new intervention.

Background: Individuals with severe mental illness experience more victimization and discrimination than other persons in the community. Effective rehabilitation and recovery-oriented care interventions aimed at addressing this issue are lacking. We therefore developed a victimization-informed intervention (accompanied by a training module for professionals) called .

Design of a Game-Based Training Environment to Enhance Mental Health Care Professionals' Skills in Using e-Mental Health: Multiple Methods User Requirements Analysis.

Background: A major factor hampering the adoption of technology in mental health care is a lack of knowledge and skills. Serious gaming offers a potentially effective strategy to enhance the skills needed through experiencing and learning-by-doing in a playful way. However, serious gaming solutions are not widely available for mental health care.

[Alarming situation amongst mental health care employees; mental health issues with possible resignation as a consequence].

While the COVID-19 pandemic integrates more and more into daily life and hospitalizations decrease, the consequence for mental health care personnel is becoming clearer. 50% of the employees in mental health care institutes experience stress and 30% have signs of depression. Simultaneously more patients present themselves at the mental health care institutes with complaints as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Process and Information Needs When Searching for and Selecting Apps for Smoking Cessation: Qualitative Study Using Contextual Inquiry.

Background: Hundreds of apps are available to support people in their quest to quit smoking. It has been hypothesized that selecting an app from a sizable volume without any aid can be overwhelming and difficult. However, little is known about how people choose apps for smoking cessation and what exactly people want to know about an app before choosing to install it.

Whether and how top management create flexibility in mental healthcare organizations: COVID-19 as a test case.

Purpose: Flexibility is essential for healthcare organizations to anticipate the increasing internal and external dynamics. Mental healthcare organizations in the Netherlands face major policy reforms made by the government, increasing involvement from municipalities and gradual replacement of clinical care with outpatient care. Top management plays an important strategic role in creating this flexibility because they make important choices, give direction and structure the organization.

Integrating eHealth within a Transforming Mental Healthcare Setting: A Qualitative Study into Values, Challenges, and Prerequisites.

Mental health care is shifting towards more person-centered and community-based health care. Although integrating eHealth within a transforming healthcare setting may help accomplishing the shift, research studying this is lacking. This study aims to improve our understanding of the value of eHealth within a transforming mental healthcare setting and to define the challenges and prerequisites for implementing eHealth in particular within this transforming context.

Assessing Professionals' Adoption Readiness for eMental Health: Development and Validation of the eMental Health Adoption Readiness Scale.

Background: The last few decades have witnessed significant advances in the development of digital tools and applications for mental health care. Despite growing evidence for their effectiveness, acceptance and use of these tools in clinical practice remain low. Hence, a validated and easy-to-use instrument for assessing professionals' readiness to adopt eMental health (EMH) is necessary to gain further insights into the process of EMH adoption and facilitate future research on this topic.

Intervention to prevent and manage the effects of victimization related to social participation for people with severe mental illness: Results from a cluster randomized controlled trial.

Objective: Individuals with severe mental illness often face (anticipated) discrimination and (criminal) victimization, which have severe consequences for their social participation. The aim of the present study is to assess the effectiveness of a new intervention to manage and prevent revictimization, and to support safe participation by recognizing and acknowledging the impact of their victimization experiences.

Method: A multicenter cluster randomized controlled trial was performed by following clients from four intervention teams and four teams providing care as usual.

Design of a Game-Based Training Environment to Enhance Health Care Professionals' E-Mental Health Skills: Protocol for a User Requirements Analysis.

Background: E-mental health (EMH) offers various possibilities for mental health care delivery, with many studies demonstrating its clinical efficacy. However, the uptake of EMH technologies by mental health care professionals remains to be low. One of the reasons for this is the lack of knowledge and skills in using these technologies.

Development of an Intervention Aimed at Increasing Awareness and Acknowledgement of Victimisation and Its Consequences Among People with Severe Mental Illness.

Individuals with severe mental illness have a significant risk of (anticipated) discrimination and (criminal) victimisation, which is not structurally and systematically addressed by mental health practitioners. The aim of this study was to develop and pilot an intervention which supports professionals to address victimisation and its consequences, in order to reinforce safe social participation and improve recovery. Following the rehabilitation and positive risk management literature, in addition to current practice, intervention components were developed in two focus groups and four subsequent expert meetings.

Realistic evaluation of the Flexmonitor, a team program to maintain and reflect on flexibility.

Purpose: Flexibility is necessary in a dynamic healthcare environment. However, balancing flexibility and consistency is difficult for healthcare teams, especially when working in threatening conditions. Methods are needed to help teams create, monitor and maintain flexibility.

Integration of Online Treatment Into the "New Normal" in Mental Health Care in Post-COVID-19 Times: Exploratory Qualitative Study.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated an immediate and large-scale uptake of online treatment for mental health care. However, there is uncertainty about what the "new normal" in mental health care will be like in post-COVID-19 times. To what extent will the experiences gained during the pandemic influence a sustainable adoption and implementation of online mental health care treatment in the future?

Objective: In this paper, we aim to formulate expectations with regard to the sustainability of online mental health care after COVID-19.

The Perspectives of Professional Caregivers on Implementing Audio-Based Technology in Residential Dementia Care.

Music and familiar everyday sounds can be meaningful for people with dementia by providing benefits such as evoking memories and emotions or prompting social interactions with caregivers or relatives. Motivated by this potential, researchers and designers are investigating how to leverage these beneficial effects of sound in care environments through audio-based technology. However, there is a gap in the knowledge of how audio-based technology can be successfully implemented within everyday care practice.

Cross-Sector Collaboration for a Healthy Living Environment-Which Strategies to Implement, Why, and in Which Context?

Background: Working toward a healthy living environment requires organizations from different policy domains and nongovernment partners involved in public health and the living environment to collaborate across sectors. The aim of this study is to understand how this cross-sector collaboration for a healthy living environment can be achieved.

Methods: The realist evaluation approach was used to investigate what strategies can be used in which contexts to achieve cross-sector collaboration.

Mental Health Care Goes Online: Practitioners' Experiences of Providing Mental Health Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated sudden and radical changes in mental health care delivery, as strict social distancing and lockdown measures were imposed in the early phases of the pandemic. Almost overnight, practitioners were forced to transfer their face-to-face care practice to online means. To understand the implications of this drastic change for mental health care, and to improve the online care offerings, an online qualitative survey was held among mental health care professionals in Netherlands ( = 51).

The Trajectory of Caregiver Burden and Risk Factors in Dementia Progression: A Systematic Review.

Background: Caring for patients with dementia at home is often a long-term process, in which the independence of the patient declines, and more responsibility and supervision time is required from the informal caregiver.

Objective: In order to minimize and reduce caregiver burden, it is important to explore its trajectory and the accompanying risk factors as dementia progresses; the objective of this systematic review.

Methods: PRISMA guidelines were followed in this systematic review.

Co-creating a program for teams to maintain and reflect on their flexibility.

To prevent rigidity within teams in health care and to support teams in detecting early warning signs of decreasing flexibility, a program has been co-created in collaboration with mental healthcare teams. This program is intended to systematically monitor team behavior, and by doing so to facilitate team intervention. We aim to lay foundations for the further development of methods that can help teams to recognize and respond to processes going on under the surface.

User-Driven Living Lab for Assistive Technology to Support People With Dementia Living at Home: Protocol for Developing Co-Creation-Based Innovations.

Background: Owing to no cure for dementia currently, there is an urgent need to look for alternative ways to support these people and their informal caregivers. Carefully designed interventions can answer the unmet needs of both people with dementia and their informal caregivers in the community. However, existing products, systems, and services are often too complex or unsuitable.

Profiling of victimization, perpetration, and participation: A latent class analysis among people with severe mental illness.

Background: Persons with severe mental illness are more prone to victimization and experience more difficulties regarding societal participation than other community members. These experiences vary greatly among individuals. Community mental health care should offer more individualized support by addressing these differences in experience.