Use of restrictive practices in approved mental health centres in Ireland: consideration of five years of national data.

Objective: To evaluate the rates of use of restrictive practices (RPs), such as seclusion and physical restraint, in approved mental health centres (ACs) in Ireland.

Methods: Examination of data reported to the regulator of mental health in Ireland, the Mental Health Commission (MHC), and the Health Research Board (HRB).

Results: There has been a substantial reduction in RP use in Irish ACs between 2018 and 2022.

A public health perspective on mental health: lessons for population health in the 21 century.

In December 2019, clinicians and academics from the disciplines of public health and psychiatry met in Dublin at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), to restate their shared commitment to population health. The purpose of this review is to bring our discussion to a wider audience. The meeting could not have been more timely.

Prospective study of provided smoking cessation care in an inpatient psychiatric setting.

Objective: People with mental health difficulties (MHD) are more likely to smoke and to have smoking-related diseases, yet little research has investigated the provision of smoking cessation care in psychiatric inpatient settings. This study aimed to evaluate current levels of cessation care provided, and 3-month quit-rates, in one such setting in Ireland.

Methods: From January to October 2016, inpatients across all 8 adult wards of St Patrick's University Hospital were recruited to participate in a baseline face-to-face survey (N = 246), assessing demographic information, smoking history and quit attempts, motivation to quit, nicotine dependence, attitudes towards cessation advice and actual care received.

Alteration of immune markers in a group of melancholic depressed patients and their response to electroconvulsive therapy.

Background: Immune system dysfunction is implicated in the pathophysiology of major depression, and is hypothesized to normalize with successful treatment. We aimed to investigate immune dysfunction in melancholic depression and its response to ECT.

Methods: 55 melancholic depressed patients and 26 controls participated.

ECT: An investigation of lay attitudes and experiences in an Irish sample.

Objectives: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is one of the most controversial psychiatric treatments of the modern era. Few studies have used validated scales to examine attitudes and knowledge regarding ECT in lay people. We examined attitudes, knowledge and experience of ECT using standardised questionnaires in Irish lay people, and compared the present results with the findings from a similar study reported over 25 years previously.

D-fenfluramine-evoked serotonergic responses in olanzapine-treated schizophrenic patients.

Antagonist activity at the 5-HT(2) receptor may contribute to the therapeutic efficacy of atypical antipsychotics in schizophrenia. This neuroendocrine study examined the in vivo functional serotonergic (5-HT) activity of the atypical antipsychotic olanzapine. We examined central 5-HT(2) responses by measuring the serum prolactin (PRL) over 5 h in response to 30 mg of D-fenfluramine (DFEN) in two groups of male schizophrenic patients.