Journal of psychiatric practice
-
Mindfulness has been described as a practice of learning to focus attention on moment-bymoment experience with an attitude of curiosity, openness, and acceptance. Mindfulness practices have become increasingly popular as complementary therapeutic strategies for a variety of medical and psychiatric conditions. This paper provides an overview of three mindfulness interventions that have demonstrated effectiveness for psychiatric symptoms and/or pain. ⋯ The evidence suggests that both MBSR and MBCT have efficacy as adjunctive interventions for anxiety symptoms. MBSR is beneficial for general psychological health and stress management in those with medical and psychiatric illness as well as in healthy individuals. Finally, MBSR and Zen meditation have a role in pain management.
-
In the current economic environment and era of health care finance reform, mental health budgets have faced cutbacks across the nation, and they may face even deeper reductions in the future. Diminished funding for care of patients with severe psychiatric illness creates significant ethical and clinical dilemmas. Throughout medicine, physicians' professional virtues and obligations of beneficence may conflict with the need to balance respect for patient autonomy and deliver clinically appropriate, humane, and ethical care within a limited budget. This article uses a case presentation to highlight this struggle at the interface of psychiatry, ethics, and the emergency room in the care of people with severe mental illness.
-
As electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) requires general anesthesia and is associated with both cognitive and non-cognitive side effects, careful consideration must be given to the safety aspects of providing ECT on an outpatient basis. Drawing upon published literature and their clinical experience administering outpatient ECT, the authors propose best practices for safely providing ECT to outpatients. ⋯ Fiscal considerations and the drive toward reduced length of stay are prompting insurers and caregivers to choose outpatient over inpatient ECT. For each patient, such a choice merits a careful analysis of the risks of outpatient ECT, as well as the implementation of measures to ensure patient safety.
-
As electronic health record systems become widely adopted and proposals are advanced to integrate mental health with general health systems, there is mounting pressure to include mental health information on the same basis as general health information without any requirement for active, individual patient consent to do so. A prime example is the current effort to change the Mental Health Information Act of the District of Columbia, which has, up till now, stood as a model for protection of the privacy of patients with mental illness, the requirement of informed consent for disclosure of health information, and delimitation of minimum necessary disclosure. Mental health information is exceptionally sensitive and potentially damaging if privacy is breached, which makes patients reluctant to seek treatment if they cannot be assured of confidentiality. ⋯ Highly sensitive information also exists in mental health records aside from psychotherapy notes. Any change in the laws that govern informed consent for disclosure of mental health information must take these factors into account. Specifically, the author opposes any change that would assume tacit consent to release mental health information through an electronic health information exchange in the absence of a patient-initiated request to "opt out"; the requirement that the patient give active, informed and non-coerced consent to disclose information--"opt in"--must be preserved.
-
While an estimated 8.5% of psychiatric patients treated in emergency departments require physical restraint, the impact of restraint on attendance at post-discharge outpatient psychiatric appointments has not been investigated. This study evaluated two groups of patients aged 18 or over: 1) 67 individuals who presented voluntarily or involuntarily (being brought in by the police) to the emergency department and who were physically restrained in the course of clinical care, and 2) a comparative group of 84 individuals who presented involuntarily but were not restrained. Perception of quality of care, recollection of the restraint episode, and attendance at follow-up outpatient appointments were compared between these two groups. ⋯ Both minority race and use of physical restraints were related to less frequent attendance at the prescribed outpatient psychiatric appointment, based on multivariate logistic regression (odds ratios of 0.40 and 0.38, respectively). Although physical restraint may sometimes be necessary to manage aggression and agitation in the emergency department, being restrained appears to be associated with decreased likelihood of attending prescribed outpatient follow-up mental health treatment. Clinicians should consider alternatives to physical restraints whenever possible to minimize impact on treatment compliance after discharge from the emergency department.