BACKGROUND Mental health is often given low priority in health policy planning, particularly in developing countries. Several international health bodies, including the World Health Organization, recommend integrating mental health into primary care settings to reduce mortality and morbidity associated with mental illness, particularly in low-resource settings. OBJECTIVE This study explores h...

The World Health Organization's Mental Health Action Plan 2013-2020 stipulates human rights as a cross-cutting principle (WHO, 2013) and foresees global targets to update policies as well as mental health laws in line with international and regional human rights instruments. The international human rights agreements repeatedly refer to health, including mental health. The most pertinent provisi...

The United States is experiencing a renewed period of immigration and immigrant policy activity as well as heightened enforcement of such policies. This intensified activity can affect various aspects of immigrant health, including mental health. We use the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation 2015 Latino National Health and Immigration Survey (n = 1,493) to examine the relationship between immigrati...

introduction: leisure activities are common among the elderly, however the effect of such activities on their mental health is poorly defined and not underpinned by strong evidence. this study aims to determine the prevalence of leisure activities and its relation to mental health in the elderly. methods: a cross- sectional study was conducted and 400 community dwelling older adults 60 years an...

OBJECTIVE Describe objectively the global gaps in policy, data gathering capacity, and resources to develop and implement services to support child mental health. METHODS Report on the World health Organization (WHO) child and adolescent mental health resources Atlas project. The Atlas project utilized key informants and was supplemented by studies that focused on policy. This report also dra...

Recently, there has been discussion in this journal on the value of the lived experience in nurse education (Happell et al. 2014). People with lived experience’s views have also been sought on the care from mental health nurses (Ådnøy Eriksen et al. 2014; Gunasekara et al. 2014). The views reported in the latter studies were both interesting and different from nurses. If service users can make ...

BACKGROUND Service user (patient) involvement in care planning is a principle enshrined by mental health policy yet often attracts criticism from patients and carers in practice. AIMS To examine how user-involved care planning is operationalised within mental health services and to establish where, how and why challenges to service user involvement occur. METHOD Systematic evidence synthesi...

BACKGROUND Globally mental health problems are a serious public health concern. Currently four out of five people with severe mental illness in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMIC) receive no effective treatment. There is an urgent need to address this enormous treatment gap. Changing the focus of specialist mental health workers (psychiatrists and psychologists) from only service delivery to...

BACKGROUND Equity in health care across all social groups is a major goal in health care policy. Immigrants may experience more mental health problems than natives, but we do not know the extent to which they seek help from primary health care services. This study aimed to determine a) the rate immigrants use primary health care services for mental health problems compared with Norwegians and b...