Promoting Resilience in High-risk Children in Jamaica: A Pilot Study of a Multimodal Intervention.

Objective: To assess the effectiveness of a multimodal afterschool and summer intervention called the Dream-A-World (DAW) Project for a cohort of school-aged Jamaican children from an impoverished, disadvantaged inner-city community in Kingston, Jamaica. Children were selected by their teachers based on severe disruptive disorders and academic underachievement and compared with a matched control group. The pilot was a child focused therapeutic modality without parental intervention for disruptive conduct and academic failure.

Issues of clinical and cultural competence in Caribbean migrants.

The level of out-migration from the Caribbean is very high, with migration of tertiary-level educated populations from Caribbean countries being the highest in the world. Many clinicians in receiving countries have had limited diagnostic and therapeutic experience with Caribbean migrants, resulting in diagnostic and therapeutic controversies. There is an urgent need for better understanding of these cultural differences.

Redefining personality disorder: a Jamaican perspective.

Objective: To characterize and assess the factor structure of phenomenological features of DSM-IV personality disorder diagnosis in Jamaican patients and determine any similarities with those of traditional criteria, associations with disorder severity, and/or significant relationships between variables to inform the current debate on the relevance of established personality disorder diagnostics.

Methods: This was a case-control study. All the patients included were seen by one private psychiatric practice from 1974 to 2007.

Deinstitutionalization and attitudes toward mental illness in Jamaica: a qualitative study.

Objective: To consider whether or not deinstitutionalization and the integration of community mental health care with primary health care services have reduced stigma toward mental illness in Jamaica.

Methods: A qualitative study of 20 focus groups, with a total of 159 participants grouped by shared sociodemographic traits. Results were analyzed using ATLAS.

Fostering resilience in children at risk through a cultural therapy intervention in Kingston, Jamaica.

This report explores an initiative in Kingston, Jamaica to foster resilience in children in an inner-city community plagued by violence and other social problems. This initiative was undertaken by CARIMENSA, the Caribbean Institute for Mental Health and Substance Abuse.