Impact of COVID-19 on Gynecologic Oncology Wait Times: A Mystery Caller Study.

Objective: Despite increasing wait times for oncologic care in the US, research has yet to examine the impact of COVID-19 on wait times to first appointments for gynecologic oncology patients. We sought to audit mean wait times, during and after the height of the pandemic, for an outpatient appointment with a gynecologic oncologist in the US.

Methods: Office phone numbers were identified from the searchable Society for Gynecologic Oncology specialist patient-facing database.

Evaluating mental health decision units in acute care pathways (DECISION): a quasi-experimental, qualitative and health economic evaluation.

Background: People experiencing mental health crises in the community often present to emergency departments and are admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Because of the demands on emergency department and inpatient care, psychiatric decision units have emerged to provide a more suitable environment for assessment and signposting to appropriate care.

Objectives: The study aimed to ascertain the structure and activities of psychiatric decision units in England and to provide an evidence base for their effectiveness, costs and benefits, and optimal configuration.

Disparities in Female Oncofertility Care in the United States: More Questions Than Answers.

As cancer therapies continue to improve, the survival rates of adolescent and young adult patients have increased. Consequently, considering patient quality of life after cancer, including family building, has become an essential aspect of establishing a treatment plan. However, the gonadotoxic nature of many chemotherapeutic agents limits the option of using one's own gamete for family building.

MODIFI: protocol for randomised feasibility study of eye-movement desensitisation and reprocessing therapy (EMDR) for functional neurological disorder (FND).

Introduction: Functional neurological disorder (FND) refers to an involuntary loss of control over and/or aberrant perception of the body. Common presenting symptoms are functional (non-epileptic) seizures, and functional motor disorder, for example, walking difficulties, weakness or tremor. Greater access to effective treatments would lead to reduced distress and disability; and reduce unnecessary healthcare costs.

Feasibility randomised controlled trial of online group Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Functional Cognitive Disorder (ACT4FCD).

Introduction: Functional cognitive disorder (FCD) is seen increasingly in clinics commissioned to assess cognitive disorders. Patients report frequent cognitive, especially memory, failures. The diagnosis can be made clinically, and unnecessary investigations avoided.

Short-stay crisis units for mental health patients on crisis care pathways: systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Internationally, an increasing proportion of emergency department visits are mental health related. Concurrently, psychiatric wards are often occupied above capacity. Healthcare providers have introduced short-stay, hospital-based crisis units offering a therapeutic space for stabilisation, assessment and appropriate referral.

Understanding recovery in the context of lived experience of personality disorders: a collaborative, qualitative research study.

Background: Concepts of recovery increasingly inform the development and delivery of mental health services internationally. In the UK recent policy advocates the application of recovery concepts to the treatment of personality disorders. However diagnosis and understanding of personality disorders remains contested, challenging any assumption that mainstream recovery thinking can be directly translated into personality disorders services.

The experiences of detained mental health service users: issues of dignity in care.

Background: When mental health service users are detained under a Section of the Mental Health Act (MHA), they must remain in hospital for a specific time period. This is often against their will, as they are considered a danger to themselves and/or others. By virtue of being detained, service users are assumed to have lost control of an element of their behaviour and as a result their dignity could be compromised.

Open access support groups for people experiencing personality disorders: do group members' experiences reflect the theoretical foundations of the SUN project?

Objectives: The SUN Project is an innovative, open access support group, based in the community, for people experiencing personality disorders, developed in response to UK Department of Health policy advocating improvements in personality disorders services. The aim of this article is to critically explore where and how the theoretically informed model underpinning the SUN Project is reflected in the view and experiences of people attending the project.

Design: This article reports an in-depth, qualitative interview-based study employing a critical realist approach.

Informing the development of services supporting self-care for severe, long term mental health conditions: a mixed method study of community based mental health initiatives in England.

Background: Supporting self-care is being explored across health care systems internationally as an approach to improving care for long term conditions in the context of ageing populations and economic constraint. UK health policy advocates a range of approaches to supporting self-care, including the application of generic self-management type programmes across conditions. Within mental health, the scope of self-care remains poorly conceptualised and the existing evidence base for supporting self-care is correspondingly disparate.

Patient and public involvement in the coproduction of knowledge: reflection on the analysis of qualitative data in a mental health study.

Patient and public involvement in health research is increasingly well established internationally, but the impacts of involvement on the research process are hard to evaluate. We describe a process of qualitative data analysis in a mental health research project with a high level of mental health service user and carer involvement, and reflect critically on how we produced our findings. Team members not from research backgrounds sometimes challenged academic conventions, leading to complex findings that would otherwise have been missing.

One size fits all: or horses for courses? Recovery-based care in specialist mental health services.

Introduction: The ‘recovery approach’ to the management of severe mental health problems has become a guiding vision of service provision amongst many practitioners, researchers, and policy makers as well as service users.

Method: This qualitative pilot study explored the meaning of ‘recovery’ with users of three specialist mental health services (eating disorders, dual diagnosis, and forensic) in 18 semi-structured interviews.

Results: The relevance of themes identified in mainstream recovery literature was confirmed; however, the interpretation and relative weight of these themes appeared to be affected by factors that were specific to the diagnosis and treatment context.

'What difference does it make?' Finding evidence of the impact of mental health service user researchers on research into the experiences of detained psychiatric patients.

Background: Interest in the involvement of members of the public in health services research is increasingly focussed on evaluation of the impact of involvement on the research process and the production of knowledge about health. Service user involvement in mental health research is well-established, yet empirical studies into the impact of involvement are lacking.

Objective: To investigate the potential to provide empirical evidence of the impact of service user researchers (SURs) on the research process.

Demographic and referral patterns of people detained under Section 136 of the Mental Health Act (1983) in a south London Mental Health Trust from 2005 to 2008.

This study aimed to retrospectively examine demographic and referral data for all detainees under Section 136 of the Mental Health Act (1983) at a 'place of safety' in one London Mental Health Trust over a three-year period. Data were collected for 887 consecutive detentions and indicated a clear over-representation of black detainees compared with their representation in the local population. A high proportion of detentions (41.