BACKGROUND Considerable attention has been focused on the study of suicides among those who have received help from healthcare providers. However, little is known about the profiles of suicide deceased who had psychiatric illnesses but made no contact with psychiatric services prior to their death. Behavioural model of health service use is applied to identify factors associated with the utiliz...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE Primary care physicians in their clinical settings usually fail to diagnose common mental disorders (CMDs). Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders (PRIME-MD) Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) has been shown to facilitate diagnosis of most CMDs seen in primary health care. Its utility in Indian setting has not been evaluated. We carried out this study in Indian setti...

Psychiatric diagnosis is fundamental to the understanding of mental illness. Without it, the study, assessment, and treatment of psychopathology would be in disarray. In this chapter, we examine: (1) the raison d’etre underlying psychiatric diagnosis; (2) widespread misconceptions regarding psychiatric diagnosis; (3) the present system of psychiatric diagnosis and its strengths and weaknesses; ...

AIMS AND METHOD The aim of the study was to investigate whether psychiatrists consider that patients with schizophrenia present a greater risk of violence than patients with other forms of mental illness. Two pairs of clinical vignettes were devised. In each pair, one contained a history of violence and one did not. One vignette was mailed to each of 2000 consultant psychiatrists in the UK. Res...

AIMS AND METHOD The aim of the study was to investigate whether psychiatrists consider that patients with schizophrenia present a greater risk of violence than patients with other forms of mental illness. Two pairs of clinical vignettes were devised. In each pair, one contained a history of violence and one did not. One vignette was mailed to each of 2000 consultant psychiatrists in the UK. Res...

BACKGROUND The majority of suicides had never had contact with the mental health care system. The aim of this study is to investigate the specific characteristics of this particular group. METHODS Coroners' files were examined for all 256 suicide victims in the Canton of Lucerne between 2002 and 2006, together with the data from the files of the public psychiatric institutions for individuals...