OBJECTIVES This paper discusses the increasing incidence of mental health problems in Pakistan, and specifically in the Swat Valley, in relation to the growing insurgency and current violence in Pakistani society. The paper argues that the health care system's response in Pakistan is not adequate to meet the current challenges and that changes in policy are needed to build mental health care se...

BACKGROUND As part of the ROAMER (ROAdmap for MEntal health Research in Europe) project, aiming to create an integrated European roadmap for mental health research, we set out to map the hitherto unmapped territory of public mental health research in Europe. METHODS Five electronic databases (CINAHL, Health Management, Medline, PsycINFO, Social Services Abstracts) were used for identifying pu...

Paramedics, health care workers who assess and manage health concerns in the prehospital setting, are increasingly providing psychosocial care in response to a rise in mental health call volume. Observers have construed this fact as "misuse" of paramedic services, and proposed as solutions better triaging of patients, better mental health training of paramedics, and a greater number of communit...

PURPOSE Description and analysis of the effects and side-effects of integrated mental health care in the Netherlands. CONTEXT OF CASE Due to a number of large-scale mergers, Dutch mental health care has become an illustration of integration and coherence of care services. This process of integration, however, has not only brought a better organisation of care but apparently has also resulted ...

Abortion policy is still contentious in many parts of the world, and periodically it emerges to dominate health policy debates. This paper examines one such debate in Australia centering on research findings by a New Zealand research group, Fergusson, Horwood & Ridder, published in early 2006. The debate highlighted the difficulty for researchers when their work is released in a heightened poli...

a Mental Health Services and Policy Program, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, 710 North Lake Shore Drive, Suite 1200, Chicago, IL 60611, USA b Mental Health Services and Policy Program, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, 710 North Lake Shore Drive, Suite 90...

This paper analyzes the history of the modern consumer/survivor movement and its impact on the policy-making climate in the mental health field. The growing attentiveness to consumers' perspectives is presented largely as a consequence, not a cause, of radical restructurings of the mental health system. Consumers' perspectives have entered policy discourse in the wake of policy failures and hav...

Smoking is the largest single cause of preventable illness in the UK. Those with mental health problems smoke significantly more and are therefore at greater risk. The new Health Act (2006) will require mental health facilities in England to be completely smoke-free by 1st July 2008. This article reviews the current literature regarding how smoking affects both the physical and mental well-bein...