Participation in the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program by people with severe mental illness, Australia, 2006-2019: a national data linkage study.

Objective: To compare rates of participation in the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program (NBCSP) and follow-up for people with severe mental illness with those for people without severe mental illness or not prescribed antidepressants.

Study Design: Retrospective cohort study; analysis of de-identified linked NBCSP, Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), and Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) data.

Setting: Australia, 2006-2019.

Latest findings highlight the continuing uncertainty over the utility of compulsory psychiatric treatment in the community.

Community treatment orders (CTOs) have been introduced in many jurisdictions with evidence of increasing use over time as well as a disproportionate use in marginalised populations. Rates of CTOs also vary widely, both internationally and within the same country, for reasons that are poorly understood. This is despite evidence for effectiveness being mixed and, as a result, there have been calls for a reappraisal of this type of legislation.

Investigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on recovery colleges: multi-site qualitative study.

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health problems increased as access to mental health services reduced. Recovery colleges are recovery-focused adult education initiatives delivered by people with professional and lived mental health expertise. Designed to be collaborative and inclusive, they were uniquely positioned to support people experiencing mental health problems during the pandemic.

A longitudinal study of the impacts of a stay in a Prevention and Recovery Care service in Victoria, Australia.

Background: Prevention and Recovery Care services are residential sub-acute services in Victoria, Australia, guided by a commitment to recovery-oriented practice. The evidence regarding the effectiveness of this service model is limited, largely relying on small, localised evaluations. This study involved a state-wide investigation into the personal recovery, perceived needs for care, well-being and quality-of-life outcomes experienced by Prevention and Recovery Care services' consumers.

The benefits and harms of community treatment orders for people diagnosed with psychiatric illnesses: A rapid umbrella review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

Aims: Community treatment orders have been introduced in many jurisdictions with increasing use over time. We conducted a rapid umbrella review to synthesise the quantitative and qualitative evidence from systematic reviews and/or meta-analyses of their potential harms and benefits.

Methods: A systematic search of Medline, PubMed, Embase and PsycINFO for relevant systematic reviews and/or meta-analyses.

International Perspectives on Mental Health Social Work: Second Edition.

Writing this Editorial for our second collection of papers on "International Perspectives on Mental Health Social Work", we reflected upon the content of our First Edition [...

Comparing mental health and mental capacity law data across borders: Challenges and opportunities.

The island of Ireland is partitioned into Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. In both jurisdictions, there have been important developments in mental health and mental capacity law, and associated policies and services. This includes an emphasis on developing more comprehensive approaches to collecting data on outcomes and so there is an opportunity to align these processes to enable comparison and shared learning across the border.

Professional care workforce: a rapid review of evidence supporting methods of recruitment, retention, safety, and education.

Background: Across the care economy there are major shortages in the health and care workforce, as well as high rates of attrition and ill-defined career pathways. The aim of this study was to evaluate current evidence regarding methods to improve care worker recruitment, retention, safety, and education, for the professional care workforce.

Methods: A rapid review of comparative interventions designed to recruit, retain, educate and care for the professional workforce in the following sectors: disability, aged care, health, mental health, family and youth services, and early childhood education and care was conducted.

Community-based models of care facilitating the recovery of people living with persistent and complex mental health needs: a systematic review and narrative synthesis.

Objective: This study aims to assess the effectiveness of community-based models of care (MoCs) supporting the recovery of individuals who experience persistent and complex mental health needs.

Method: We conducted a systematic review and narrative synthesis of MoC studies reporting clinical, functional, or personal recovery from October 2016 to October 2021. Sources were Medline, EMBASE, PsycInfo, CINAHL, and Cochrane databases.

Organisational and student characteristics, fidelity, funding models, and unit costs of recovery colleges in 28 countries: a cross-sectional survey.

Background: Recovery colleges were developed in England to support the recovery of individuals who have mental health symptoms or mental illness. They have been founded in many countries but there has been little international research on recovery colleges and no studies investigating their staffing, fidelity, or costs. We aimed to characterise recovery colleges internationally, to understand organisational and student characteristics, fidelity, and budget.

Creating "an oasis of hope, inclusion and connection": students and stakeholders' experiences of a pilot Recovery College.

Background: Recovery Colleges are an innovative approach to promoting personal recovery for people experiencing mental illness.

Aims: This study was to explore experiences of students, supporters, staff, educators and external stakeholders (i.e.

Constructing recovery: A Lived Experience and post-structuralist exploration of how the meaning of personal recovery and rehabilitation has changed over time.

Objective: This article explores how the concept of 'recovery' has been much debated and often sits at odds with our notion of rehabilitation.

Method: This article provides a Lived Experience and post-structural commentary on the ever-changing meaning of recovery and rehabilitation.

Results: Building on the contemporary Consumer Movement's use of the term recovery, this article explores how constructions of recovery try to create a boundary which stops people being invalidated based on their experience, or perceived experience, of mental distress.

'Quitlink': Outcomes of a randomised controlled trial of peer researcher facilitated referral to a tailored quitline tobacco treatment for people receiving mental health services.

Objective: The aim of this study was to test the effectiveness of a tailored quitline tobacco treatment ('Quitlink') among people receiving support for mental health conditions.

Methods: We employed a prospective, cluster-randomised, open, blinded endpoint design to compare a control condition to our 'Quitlink' intervention. Both conditions received a brief intervention delivered by a peer researcher.

Consumer Views and Experiences of Secondary-Care Services Following REFOCUS-PULSAR Staff Recovery-Oriented Practices Training.

Background: The use of recovery-oriented practice (ROP) can be challenging to implement in mental health services. This qualitative sub-study of the Principles Unite Local Services Assisting Recovery (PULSAR) project explored how consumers perceive their recovery following community mental health staff undertaking specific ROP training.

Methods: Using a qualitative participatory methodology, 21 consumers (aged 18-63 years) participated in one-on-one interviews.

Evidence-based Recovery Colleges: developing a typology based on organisational characteristics, fidelity and funding.

Purpose: Recovery Colleges (RCs) have been implemented across England with wide variation in organisational characteristics. The purpose of this study is to describe RCs across England in terms of organisational and student characteristics, fidelity and annual spending, to generate a RC typology based on characteristics and to explore the relationship between characteristics and fidelity.

Methods: All RC in England meeting criteria on recovery orientation, coproduction and adult learning were included.

The value of compassionate support to address smoking: A qualitative study with people who experience severe mental illness.

Introduction: People experiencing severe mental illness (SMI) smoke at much higher rates than the general population and require additional support. Engagement with existing evidence-based interventions such as quitlines and nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) may be improved by mental health peer worker involvement and tailored support. This paper reports on a qualitative study nested within a peer researcher-facilitated tobacco treatment trial that included brief advice plus, for those in the intervention group, tailored quitline callback counseling and combination NRT.

Using a digital personal recovery resource in routine mental health practice: feasibility, acceptability and outcomes.

Background: Digital technologies enable the dissemination of multimedia resources to support adults with serious mental illness in their self-management and personal recovery. However, delivery needs to accommodate engagement and accessibility challenges.

Aims: We examined how a digital resource, designed for mental health workers and consumers to use together in session, would be used in routine practice.

Editorial: International Perspectives on Mental Health and Mental Health Social Work.

The following collection of articles reflects the diversity of research, policy and practice in mental health social work in a range of international contexts [...

Adapting Peer Researcher Facilitated Strategies to Recruit People Receiving Mental Health Services to a Tobacco Treatment Trial.

Introduction: One of the most challenging aspects of conducting intervention trials among people who experience severe mental illness (SMI) and who smoke tobacco, is recruitment. In our parent "QuitLink" randomized controlled trial (RCT), slower than expected peer researcher facilitated recruitment, along with the impact of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, necessitated an adaptive recruitment response. The objectives of the present study were to: (i) describe adaptive peer researcher facilitated recruitment strategies; (ii) explore the effectiveness of these strategies; (iii) investigate whether recruitment strategies reached different subgroups of participants; and (iv) examine the costs and resources required for implementing these strategies.

Community-based social interventions for people with severe mental illness: a systematic review and narrative synthesis of recent evidence.

People living with severe mental illness (SMI) are one of the most marginalized groups in society. Interventions which aim to improve their social and economic participation are of crucial importance to clinicians, policy-makers and people with SMI themselves. We conducted a systematic review of the literature on social interventions for people with SMI published since 2016 and collated our findings through narrative synthesis.

Supporting the Sharing of Mental Health Challenges in the Workplace: Findings from Comparative Case Study Research at Two Mental Health Services.

Personal experience with mental health (MH) challenges has been characterized as a concealable stigma. Identity management literature suggests actively concealing a stigma may negatively impact wellbeing. Reviews of workplace identity management literature have linked safety in revealing a stigma to individual performance, well-being, engagement and teamwork.

Contextual Barriers and Enablers to Safewards Implementation in Victoria, Australia: Application of the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research.

Safewards is a complex psychosocial intervention designed to reduce conflict and containment on inpatient mental health units. There is mounting international evidence of the effectiveness and acceptability of Safewards. However, a significant challenge exists in promising interventions, such as Safewards, being translated into routine practice.

Engaging with Transformative Paradigms in Mental Health.

When graduates of Australian social work courses embark on a career in mental health, the systems they enter are complex, fragmented and evolving. Emerging practitioners will commonly be confronted by the loneliness, social exclusion, poverty and prejudice experienced by people living with mental distress; however, social work practice may not be focused on these factors. Instead, in accordance with the dominant biomedical perspective, symptom and risk management may predominate.

Peer support work for people experiencing mental distress attending the emergency department: Exploring the potential.

Objective: This study explored the benefits and limitations of employing peer support workers, who utilise their own lived experience of mental distress and recovery, to support people experiencing mental distress who are attending the ED.

Methods: This co-produced qualitative study utilised four phases: (i) assemble a collaborative multi-disciplinary research team and Expert Panel, of which at least half identified as having lived experience; (ii) a site visit to an ED; (iii) focus groups with consumers, support persons and ED staff; and (iv) a learning workshop for peer workers.

Results: Focus groups were run for consumers (n = 7), support persons (n = 5) and ED staff (n = 7).