Mental health and alcohol and other drug training for emergency department workers: one solution to help manage increasing demand.

Objective: To evaluate a training course for ED staff aiming to improve knowledge and skills in working with mental health and drug/alcohol patients attending EDs.

Methods: Pre- and postcourse questionnaires assessed attitudes and self-ratings of confidence, knowledge and skills in working with these patients. Follow-up interviews assessed if new skills or approaches to patient management had been integrated into daily ED practice.

The South Oaks Gambling Screen: a review with reference to Australian use.

The South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS) is a psychometric instrument widely used internationally to assess the presence of pathological gambling. Developed by Lesieur and Blume (1987) in the United States of America (USA) as a self-rated screening instrument, it is based on DSM-III and DSM-III-R criteria. This paper describes the origins and psychometric development of the SOGS and comments critically in relation to its construct validity and cutoff scores.