Homelessness and housing problems in admitted psychiatric patients in Flanders, Belgium.

Homelessness in psychiatric patients in Flanders, Belgium, has never been investigated. Advocacy groups from patients with lived experience of psychiatric disorders have sounded the alarm on the scarcity of suitable housing options, the strain on psychiatric institutions, and the challenges faced by social service workers. To investigate the extent of the problem a survey on the topic was initiated.

The community pharmacist as a link to psychosocial care services: Findings and lessons from a collaborative project.

The role of pharmacists is increasingly expanding to encompass holistic patient-oriented services, including prevention, health advice, and counseling. Despite this, the pharmacist's role in public psychosocial wellbeing remains understudied. Project #CAVAsa, a collaboration between Flemish Pharmacists' Network and Centers for General Wellbeing (CAW), aimed to strengthen the pharmacist's role in psychosocial care.

Severity and Factors Associated with Depressive Symptoms Among Type 2 Diabetic Patients in Vietnam.

Background: Diabetes and psychiatric disorders often co-occur. The prevalence of depression in a person with diabetes is two times higher than that of the general population. During the last decade, the prevalence of diabetes in Vietnam has nearly doubled.

Building Bridges between Pharmacy and Psychosocial Care: Supporting and Referring Patients with Psychosocial Needs in a Pilot Study with Community Pharmacists.

Introduction: Community pharmacists are accessible primary care providers and therefore in a good position to detect unmet psychosocial needs of their patients and pharmacy visitors.

Description: A collaboration between pharmacists and psychosocial work was set up in Flanders, Belgium. Community pharmacists were trained to discuss psychosocial needs, to inform patients about possible help and refer them to a Center for General Wellbeing if needed.

Psychiatrists and other medical professionals in Belgium show a substantial lack of knowledge about poverty.

The bidirectional relationship between poverty and poor physical and mental health is well-known. All physicians should have sufficient knowledge on poverty as a social determinant and its impact on (mental) health. The knowledge of poverty in physicians is seldom investigated.

"At the time I only wanted to relieve stress": Exploring motivation for behaviour change in long-term hypnotic users.

Background: Motivating patients to discontinue long-term benzodiazepine receptor agonist (BZRA) use for insomnia remains an important challenge in primary care because of the medication's unfavourable risk-benefit profile. Previous studies have shown that understanding the complexity of patients' motivation is crucial to the primary care physician for providing effective interventions efficiently. Theoretical frameworks about behaviour change show that motivation is a multi-layered concept that interacts with other concepts, which aligns with a holistic perspective or implementation of the biopsychosocial model.

Development of a toolkit to improve interprofessional collaboration and integration in primary care using qualitative interviews and co-design workshops.

Background: Despite numerous attempts to improve interprofessional collaboration and integration (IPCI) in primary care, patients, care providers, researchers, and governments are still looking for tools and guidance to do this more efficiently. To address these issues, we decided to develop a generic toolkit, based on sociocracy and psychological safety principles, to guide care providers in their collaboration within and outside their practice. Finally, we reasoned that, in order to obtain integrated primary care, different strategies should be combined.

Implementing Blended Care to Discontinue Benzodiazepine Receptor Agonist Use for Insomnia: Process Evaluation of a Pragmatic Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Long-term use of benzodiazepine receptor agonists (BZRAs) remains common despite European guidelines advising that these drugs be used in the lowest possible dose and for the shortest possible duration. Half of all BZRAs are prescribed in family practice. This creates a window of opportunity for discontinuation in primary care.

Media coverage of Belgium's first criminal case concerning euthanasia for psychiatric patients: A content analysis of Flemish newspapers and magazines.

Background: Belgium is one of the few countries worldwide where euthanasia on the grounds of unbearable suffering caused by a psychiatric disorder is legally possible. In April 2010 euthanasia was carried out on a 38-year-old Belgian woman with borderline personality disorder and/or autism. After a complaint by the family, three physicians were referred to the Court of Assizes on the charge of "murder by poisoning".

Physical Healthcare for People with a Severe Mental Illness in Belgium by Long-Term Community Mental Health Outreach Teams: A Qualitative Descriptive Study on Physicians', Community Mental Health Workers' and Patients' Perspectives.

Background: People with a severe mental illness (pSMI) often have comorbid physical health problems, resulting in a lower life expectancy compared to the global population. In Belgium, it remains unclear how to approach health disparities in pSMI in a community setting. This study explores the perspectives of both care professionals and patients on physical healthcare in Belgian community mental services, aiming to identify good practices, barriers and points of improvement.

Blended care to discontinue benzodiazepine receptor agonists use in patients with chronic insomnia disorder: a pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial in primary care.

Study Objectives: International guidelines recommend using benzodiazepine receptor agonists (BZRA) for maximally four weeks. Nevertheless, long-term use for chronic insomnia disorder remains a common practice. This study aimed to test the effectiveness of blended care for discontinuing long-term BZRA use in general practice.

Scoping review to identify strategies and interventions improving interprofessional collaboration and integration in primary care.

Objective: To identify strategies and interventions used to improve interprofessional collaboration and integration (IPCI) in primary care.

Design: Scoping review DATA SOURCES: Specific Medical Subject Headings terms were used, and a search strategy was developed for PubMed and afterwards adapted to Medline, Eric and Web of Science.

Study Selection: In the first stage of the selection, two researchers screened the article abstracts to select eligible papers.

How do people living with chronic conditions and their informal caregivers experience primary care? A phenomenological-hermeneutical study.

Aims And Objectives: Gaining insight in how people living with chronic conditions experience primary healthcare within their informal network.

Background: The primary healthcare system is challenged by the increasing number of people living with chronic conditions. To strengthen chronic care management, literature and policy plans point to a person-centred approach of care (PCC).

Increase in Anxiety-Related Out-of-Hours Primary Care Consultations Since COVID-19: An Observational Study Using Routine Data in Flanders.

Survey studies suggest that COVID-19 has had a negative impact on the population's mental well-being. Routine registration data allow a more objective way for investigating such associations, complementary to self-report measures. This study investigates the level of out of hours (OOH) consultations for psychological problems since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in Flanders, Belgium.

iPSYcare: the development of a linked electronic medical records database to study and optimize psychiatric care in Antwerp.

Objective: The study of care trajectories of psychiatric patients across hospitals was previously not possible in Belgium as each hospital stores its data autonomously, and government-related registrations do not contain a unique identifier or are incomplete. A new longitudinal database called iPSYcare (Improved Psychiatric Care and Research) was therefore constructed in 2021, and links the electronic medical records of patients in psychiatric units of eight hospitals in the Antwerp Province, Belgium. The database provides a wide range of information on patients, care trajectories and delivered care in the region.

Operationalization of One Health Burnout Prevention and Recovery: Participatory Action Research-Design of Nature-Based Health Promotion Interventions for Employees.

Burnout is, besides a global, complex phenomenon, a public health issue with negative consequences on personal, organizational, social, and economic levels. This paper outlines the co-design of a novel Nature-based Burnout Coaching intervention, called NABUCO. Due to the complexity of burnout, we propose a One Health approach in healthcare, educational and governmental pilot organizations, to deliver guidelines and protocols for prevention and recovery of burnout.

Euthanasia in adults with psychiatric conditions: A descriptive study of the experiences of Belgian psychiatrists.

To investigate the experience of psychiatrists who completed assessment procedures of euthanasia requests from adults with psychiatric conditions (APC) over the last 12 months. Between November 2018 and April 2019 a cross-sectional survey was sent to a sample of 753 psychiatrists affiliated with Belgian organisations of psychiatrists to gather detailed information on their latest experience with a completed euthanasia assessment procedure, irrespective of its outcome (i.e.

Mental Distress and Its Contributing Factors Among Young People During the First Wave of COVID-19: A Belgian Survey Study.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and its associated measures led to high levels of mental distress in the general population. Previous research indicated that young people are especially vulnerable for a wide range of mental health problems during the pandemic, but little is known about the mechanisms. This study examined mental distress and its contributing factors among young Belgian people.

Exploring how the urban neighborhood environment influences mental well-being using walking interviews.

Mental well-being in cities is being challenged worldwide and a more detailed understanding of how urban environments influence mental well-being is needed. This qualitative study explores neighborhood factors and their interactions in relation to mental well-being. Individual semi-structured walking interviews were conducted with 28 adults living in the Brussels-Capital Region.

COVID-19 is having a destructive impact on health-care workers' mental well-being.

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) may aggravate workplace conditions that impact health-care workers' mental health. However, it can also place other stresses on workers outside of their work. This study determines the effect of COVID-19 on symptoms of negative and positive mental health and the workforce's experience with various sources of support.