OBJECTIVES To discuss developments in Ontario mental health reform, describe general psychiatric services in contrast to tertiary services, describe guidelines for the training of general psychiatrists, and suggest what changes may be required to develop an integrated mental health system (IMHS). METHOD We review the Ontario government's recent blueprint for mental health reform and the Canad...

BACKGROUND There is growing concern about the metabolic abnormalities in patients with schizophrenia. AIMS The aim of this study was to assess the attitudes of psychiatrists toward metabolic adverse events in patients with schizophrenia. METHOD A BRIEF QUESTIONNAIRE WAS CONSTRUCTED TO COVER THE FOLLOWING BROAD AREAS: the psychiatrists' recognition of the metabolic risk of antipsychotic ther...

OBJECTIVE The national shortage of child and adolescent psychiatrists has prompted efforts to improve recruitment. It is uncertain whether these efforts will be sufficient to address this shortage and its impact on youth mental health services. METHOD Data were compared from 1990 to 2001 by state, county characteristics, number of youths, and percentage of youths living in poverty to determin...

Controversial and ethically tenuous, the use of placebos is central to medicine but even more pivotal to psychosocial therapies. Scholars, researchers, and practitioners largely disagree about the conceptualization of placebos. While different professionals often confound the meanings of placebo effects with placebo responses, physicians continue to prescribe placebos as part of clinical practi...

It is crucial to minimize bias when offering forensic opinions; however, to our knowledge there are few, if any, existing data examining whether psychiatrists are susceptible to one source of such bias, hindsight bias. In the current study, 235 general and forensic psychiatrists reviewed hypothetical cases in which patients with suicidal or homicidal ideation presented for psychiatric care. We ...

The Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Medical Training Initiative (MTI) enables qualified foreign-trained psychiatrists to gain further experience within the UK National Health Service (NHS). This article summarises observations two Nigerian during their forensic psychiatry placements on MTI scheme and supervisors. It discusses similarities differences between Nigeria in psychiatry, including use...