Asylums and Harm Embodiment.

This article examines iatrogenic harms incurred by closed-ward psychiatric hospitals. In particular, this article considers roles of narrative in one patient's experience of life-encompassing iatrogenic harm from being institutionalized from infancy to age 60 and also emphasizes Italy's comparative success, relative to the United States, in recovering from decades of deinstitutionalization to establish community-based mental health care.

What Does It Mean for a Case to be 'Local'?: the Importance of Local Relevance and Resonance for Bioethics Education in the Asia-Pacific Region.

Contemporary bioethics education has been developed predominately within Euro-American contexts, and now, other global regions are increasingly joining the field, leading to a richer global understanding. Nevertheless, many standard bioethics curriculum materials retain a narrow geographic focus. The purpose of this article is to use local cases from the Asia-Pacific region as examples for exploring questions such as 'what makes a case or example truly local, and why?', 'what topics have we found to be best explained through local cases or examples?', and 'how does one identify a relevant local case?' Furthermore, we consider the global application of local cases to help extend the possible scope of the discussion, opening new avenues for the development of practical bioethics educational materials.

Cultural considerations in forgoing enteral feeding: A comparison between the Hong Kong Chinese, North American, and Malaysian Islamic patients with advanced dementia at the end-of-life.

Cultural competence, a clinical skill to recognise patients' cultural and religious beliefs, is an integral element in patient-centred medical practice. In the area of death and dying, physicians' understanding of patients' and families' values is essential for the delivery of culturally appropriate care. Dementia is a neurodegenerative condition marked by the decline of cognitive functions.

Political engagement as an element of social recovery: a qualitative study.

Objective: Taking a qualitative approach, this study sought to describe consumer attitudes toward political participation and the association between political engagement and social recovery.

Methods: This study used data from seven focus groups of self-identified consumers of mental health services in the New York City area (N=52). Attitudes and behaviors related to voting and other forms of political engagement were identified and classified according to grounded theory, with a focus on the relationship between political engagement and broader social functioning, participation, and recovery.

Gender, race-ethnicity, and psychosocial barriers to mental health care: an examination of perceptions and attitudes among adults reporting unmet need.

Though researchers have described psychosocial barriers to mental health care-seeking, limited research has examined ways in which gender and race-ethnicity are associated with individuals' perceptions and attitudes. This study investigates correlates of psychosocial barriers to mental health care in a population of adults reporting unmet need for mental health care, focusing on gender and race-ethnicity. Data are from the 2002 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.