Implementing National Institute for Health and Care Excellence smoke-free guidance in a secure facility: an evaluation of the prescribing costs in clozapine users.

Unlabelled: Aims and method The increased rates of smoking in people with mental illness is well documented, and establishing smoke-free mental health environments has been emphasised over recent years. This article examines the financial costs of implementing smoke free guidance and assesses the cost associated with patients who were prescribed clozapine and who committed to stopping smoking cigarettes for the duration of the study period.

Results: Patients (38) who were prescribed clozapine were included in the study.

Liaison psychiatry professionals' views of general hospital care for patients with mental illness: The care of patients with mental illness in the general hospital setting.

Objective: Explore the experiences of liaison psychiatry professionals, to gain a greater understanding of the quality of care patients with mental illness receive in the general hospital setting; the factors that affect the quality of care; and their insights on interventions that could improve care.

Methods: A survey questionnaire and qualitative in depth interviews were used to collect data. Data collection took place at the Royal College of Psychiatrists Faculty of Liaison Psychiatry Annual conference.

The attitudes of general hospital doctors toward patients with comorbid mental illness.

Objective: What are the attitudes of general hospital doctors toward patients with comorbid mental illness? Do certain characteristics of the health professional related to attitude valence to patients with comorbid mental illness?

Method: An anonymous questionnaire was sent out to a cohort of doctors working in three General Hospitals in South West London. The questionnaire included vignettes to assess the respondents' attitudes toward eight patients presenting with a physical compliant with different clinical histories, including depression, schizophrenia, personality disorder, diabetes, and criminal behavior.

Results: A total of 52 participants completed the questionnaire; 40 females and 12 males.

Mental health-related stigma in health care and mental health-care settings.

This Review considers the evidence for mental-health-related stigma in health-care and mental-health-care settings. Do mental-health-care and other health-care professionals stigmatise people using their services? If so, what are the effects on quality of mental and physical health care? How can stigma and discrimination in the context of health care be reduced? We show that the contact mental-health-care professionals have with people with mental illness is associated with positive attitudes about civil rights, but does not reduce stigma as does social contact such as with friends or family members with mental illness. Some evidence suggests educational interventions are effective in decreasing stigma especially for general health-care professionals with little or no formal mental health training.

The importance of not jumping to conclusions: syphilis as an organic cause of neurological, psychiatric and endocrine presentations.

A 66-year-old Caucasian man was admitted to an acute psychiatric ward under section 2 of the Mental Health Act after presenting with auditory hallucinations and partition delusions. He had been known to mental health services since 2005 but had never been treated with psychotropic medication or given a formal psychiatric diagnosis. He was also diagnosed with hypopituitarism of unknown aetiology in 2002.