Clinically useful predictors for premature mortality among psychiatric patients visiting a psychiatric emergency room.

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine changes in the distribution of causes of death and mortality rates among psychiatric patients visiting a psychiatric emergency room (PER), to determine clinically useful predictors for avoiding premature mortality among these patients and to discuss possible interventions.

Method: The study was designed as a historical prospective record linkage study of patients with at least one visit to a Danish PER in 1995-2007. Five consecutive 3-year cohorts of individuals aged 20 to <80 years were identified.

Psychoeducation for schizophrenia.

Background: Schizophrenia can be a severe and chronic illness characterised by lack of insight and poor compliance with treatment. Psychoeducational approaches have been developed to increase patients' knowledge of, and insight into, their illness and its treatment. It is supposed that this increased knowledge and insight will enable people with schizophrenia to cope in a more effective way with their illness, thereby improving prognosis.

Subjective versus interviewer assessment of global quality of life among persons with schizophrenia living in the community: a Nordic multicentre study.

Background: Few studies have investigated differences between subjective and externally assessed quality of life in individuals with a severe mental illness. In a sample of 387 patients with schizophrenia living in the community the present study investigated the association between subjective and interviewer-rated quality of life, clinical and sociodemographic factors related to the two assessments, and if discrepancies in the assessments were related to any clinical or social features of the patients.

Method: The study was a Nordic multicentre study with a cross-sectional design.

Schizophrenia and contact with health and social services: a Nordic multi-centre study.

Background: In a Nordic multi-centre study investigating the life and care situation of persons with schizophrenia living in the community, factors explaining use of health and social services were examined.

Method: Four hundred and eighteen individuals with schizophrenia from 10 sites were interviewed about their contact with different services (support functions within and outside the mental health services, general practitioners (GPs), physicians in the mental health, psychotherapy, day-care and inpatient treatment), psychopathology, social network and needs for care.

Results: Physicians and support contacts within the mental health system were most used and GPs and psychotherapy least.

The relationship of needs and quality of life in persons with schizophrenia living in the community. A Nordic multi-center study.

The relationship between needs for care and support and subjective quality of life was investigated in a cross-sectional multi-center study including 418 individuals with schizophrenia from 10 centers in Nordic countries. Needs in 22 domains were investigated by interviews with key workers and their patients using the Camberwell Assessment of Need scale, and quality of life by the Lancashire Quality of Life Profile. The results showed that key workers rated slightly more needs than patients.