International Journal of Social Psychiatry

Cultural competence is a prerequisite skill for a psychiatrist. There is a dearth of information on the methods used for training of cultural competence and their outcomes. This study aims to explore and determine the existing methods used for cultural competency training (CCT) for psychiatry residents and how useful these training methods are.

A systematic review methodology based on PRISMA guidelines was adopted for this study. The literature search reviewed databases of PubMed and MesH, using keywords ‘psychiatry resident’, ‘psychiatry’, ‘psychiatrist’, ‘mental health’, and ‘mental health professional’. In the end,14 articles qualified for the detailed review. The level of evidence and quality of the studies were evaluated and recorded.

The methods of cultural competence training identified were grouped as, active/passive/mixed; group training/individual training. These included documentaries or non-feature films based teaching, secondary consultation and cross consultation models, case vignette discussions, Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE), behavioral simulation, video demonstration, cultural discussion in rounds, and traditional clinical teaching. The studies covered participants from different cultural backgrounds, mainly urban and predominantly university/institution based.

There is limited literature in the area to conclude one method to be better than the other with respect to CCT in psychiatry residents. However, this review identified a variety of training methods, which can be used and pave way for research on their effectiveness. Training and evaluation of psychiatry residents in the area of cultural competence should be done routinely during their training to enable them to practice in the multi ethic societies.

Health care providers are an important target group for anti-stigma interventions because they have the potential to convey stigmatizing attitudes towards people with mental illness. This can have a detrimental impact on the quality and effectiveness of care provided to those affected by mental illness.

Whittemore & Knafl’s integrative review method (2005) was used to analyze 16 studies investigating anti-stigma interventions targeting health care providers.

The interventions predominantly involved contact-based educational approaches which ranged from training on mental health (typically short-term), showing videos or films (indirect social contact) to involving people with lived experiences of mental illness (direct social contact). A few studies focused on interventions involving educational strategies without social contact, such as mental health training (courses/modules), distance learning via the Internet, lectures, discussion groups, and simulations. One study investigated an online anti-stigma awareness-raising campaign that aimed to reduce stigmatizing attitudes among health care providers.

Anti-stigma interventions that involve social contact between health care providers and people with mental illness, target specific mental illnesses and include long-term follow-up strategies seem to be the most promising at reducing stigma towards mental illness among health care providers.

The review aimed to identify and explore the association of level of support received by people with severe mental illness in supported accommodation and participation.

The authors conducted a systematic search in MEDLINE, PsychINFO, PsychARTICLES, CINAHL Plus and ASSIA. Searches were restricted to articles published in English and participants aged 18 years and over with severe mental illness. Articles were included based on level of support received in mental health supported accommodation, classified according to the Simple Taxonomy for Supported Accommodation, and three factors of participation: social participation, daily living functioning and personal empowerment. Studies of in-patient settings and nursing homes were excluded. The review protocol is registered on PROSPERO (registration number: CRD42019161808).

Six articles were included in the review from USA, Australia, Sweden and Taiwan. Factors of participation for people living in accommodation with moderate support and accommodation with high support were explored. Data indicated an association between level of support and participation showing that people living in accommodation with moderate support had increased participation compared to people living in accommodation with high support.

This review identified an association between level of formal support and participation. People with SMI living in accommodation with medium support participated in more community occupations, more activities and had a higher level of personal empowerment than people living in accommodation with high support.

Posttraumatic growth (PTG) represents a positive personal change after adverse events, such as natural disasters, including earthquake. However, the association between exposure to earthquake and level of PTG is still unknown. Thus, the aim of this systematic review and meta-analyses (MA) is to assess the level of PTG in people exposed to earthquake.

Studies were identified via Scopus, PsycInfo, Web of Science, PubMed, EMBASE, ProQuest, Cochran Library, Ovid, Google Scholar, OpenGrey, congress, and conferences research papers. The level of PTG was presented as mean and standard deviation. Subgroup analyses were conducted to control for the amount of time that had passed since stressor onset and age of the study population. The meta-regression was used to explore the sources of between-study heterogeneity, including sample size and age.

The MA of all 21 studies using no restrictions related to age and time of the PTG measurement since traumatic event showed low level of PTG (41.71; 95%CI = 34.26; 49.16, I²: 62.44%, p: .000). Subgroup analyses controlled for the age demonstrated that level of PTG was higher in adults (49.47; 95% CI = 42.35; 56.58, I²: 0%, p = .466) when compared to children and adolescents (35.38; 95% CI = 23.65; 47.11, I²: 69.09%, p < .00). Moreover, the pooled weight mean of PTG measured 1 year and less than 1 year since the earthquake varied between medium (46.04; 95%CI = 34.45; 57.63, I²:51.2%, p: .037) and high (59.03; 95%CI = 41.46; 76.41, I²: 0%, p: .990) levels, respectively.

The results of our MA showed low level of PTG in earthquake survivors. However, the mean value of PTG in adults was higher when compared to children and adolescents. In addition, the mean PTG was found to decrease over time since traumatic events.

Since the 21st century, humans have experienced five public health emergencies: the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), type A H1N1 influenza (H1N1), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), Ebola virus disease (EVD), and the new coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19). They caused a large number of casualties and a wider psychological crisis, which might cause severe consequences such as post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide.

To reveal the law of formation of public psychological crisis in public health emergencies, and draw lessons from it. To provide ideas for effectively deal with these psychological crisis problems and fundamentally curbing the occurrence of public health emergencies.

Through the method of literature research, ‘public health incidents’, ‘psychological crisis’, ‘mental health’, ‘psychological intervention’, ‘SARS’, ‘H1N1’, ‘MERS’, ‘EVD’, and ‘COVID-19’ were used to search literatures in the databases such as PubMed, Springer, and Sciencedirect, and the literatures were summarized, sorted, and studied.

(1) The public health emergencies caused a universal psychological crisis. The main manifestations were depression, compulsion, despair, etc. The people involved mainly include patients, suspected isolated patients, medical staff, and the general public in the epidemic situation. (2) People’s psychological state often experienced stress stage, shock stage, acceptance, and reorganization. Only some susceptible individuals couldn’t complete effective psychological reconstruction, resulting in serious psychological disorders. Individual susceptibility is related to genetic factors, adversity, and traumatic stimuli experienced in early life.

To reduce these psychological crisis problems, we should establish and improve the psychological crisis intervention or rescue system of public health emergencies, it was still necessary to live in harmony with nature, get rid of the inappropriate habit of preying on wild animals, in order to prevent the cross-species transmission of the virus between wild animals and humans, and to fundamentally avoid the occurrence of major infectious diseases.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a worldwide epidemic declared by the world health organization as a public health emergency of concern and consequently inducing huge mental health and psychological reactions.

This study is aimed to summarize the existing data regarding anxiety, depression, and psychological distress during the covid-19 pandemic among the wider population so that effective intervention strategies will be initiated.

Pieces of literature that assessed anxiety, depression, and psychological distress among the general population during the COVID pandemic period were systematically gathered. Data extraction in Microsoft excel was done by two independent reviewers using predefined criteria. The analysis was done using a stata-11 and random effect model. A sub-group and sensitivity analysis was done. Besides, the funnel plot and eggers publication bias test was tested.

Sixteen studies that assessed 78,225 participants were included. Nine studies were included in the meta-analysis for anxiety prevalence. The average prevalence of anxiety was found to be 38.12%. A sub-group analysis showed that anxiety was 33.33% in China and 47.70% in other countries (Italy, Turkey, and India). Anxiety prevalence in studies measured with the DASS-21 scale, GAD-7 scale, and other tools (SAS, HADS, and 5-point Likert scale) was 23.4%, 40.73%, and 44.47% respectively. The prevalence of anxiety in studies that assessed a sample size above 2,000 participants was 40.33%. The average prevalence of depression among included studies was 34.31% and a sub-group analysis showed that depression was higher in China (36.32%) than in other countries (28.3%). Moreover, six studies reported psychological distress and the average prevalence was 37.54%.

This study revealed that anxiety, depression, and psychological distress are potential public mental health problems of the global community that suggests the need for early recognition and initiation of interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic period.

During the Great Recession of 2008 many of the European and other western economies had been affected with the unemployment rising and income shrinking. Daily lives of a country’s citizens always are affected by an economic downturn in various ways and mental health problems are expected to be worsen.

The aim of this systematic review is to identify to what extent the economic crisis of the last decade has influenced mental health issues in daily life, by offering an in-depth analysis of such effect.

PRISMA guidelines were followed and PubMed platform was used for the literature research. There were included articles that were published between 2009 and 2019. The search terms used were economic crisis and mental health. An extraction sheet was created to collect the results.

Thirty-five studies from several countries were included in this review. The results from this articles point out that specific social groups are more vulnerable during periods of economic crisis in terms of mental health impact. Depression, anxiety and stress are some of the most common outcomes. However, not all the evidence sources agree.

Despite the disagreements, the economic downturn and its outcomes can effect negatively the psychological state either of the population as a whole or of specific subgroups. Mental health is largely affected by economy and regulatory adjustments of supportive care services are needed to buffer negative effects. Primary care could be a ‘remote access server’ of specific interventions designed to target vulnerable population groups. The development of strategies at a country level is essential in order to support the most vulnerable groups of the population during a recession period.

Suicide is a global preventable public health problem. About a quarter of all suicides in the world occur in South Asia. As means restriction is an important suicide prevention strategy, gaining knowledge of the common suicide methods and their changing trends in each country and region is crucial.

We aimed to assess the suicide methods in South Asian countries over the last two decades.

A search was performed in PubMed, PubMed Central, Scopus, and Google Scholar with the search terms. Original articles of quantitative studies, published in the English language, from 2001 to 2020, with full-accessible text, that rank different methods of suicide in eight South Asian countries, were included.

A total of 68 studies were found eligible for review. The Maximum number of studies were found from India (n = 38), followed by Bangladesh (n = 12), Pakistan (n = 9), Sri Lanka (n = 6), and Nepal (n = 3). Hanging (n = 40, 55.8%) and poisoning (n = 24, 35.3%) were the two most common suicide methods reported, in that order. Hanging followed by poisoning were the commonest suicide methods in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan while in Sri Lanka, poisoning was the preferred method to hanging. There is a decline in suicide by poisoning and an increase in suicide by hanging in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and India. Although hanging is still the commonest method in Pakistan, the use of firearms is growing in recent years (2011–2020).

There is a steady decline in the incidence of suicides by poisoning following pesticide regulations in South Asian countries. However, there is heterogeneity of study methods, probable under-reporting of suicide, and lack of robust suicide data.

Although knowledge is a crucial component in contact theory delineating how prejudice changes toward out-groups with stigmatized conditions, little is known about the mediating role of knowledge on contact, stigmatizing attitudes, and behaviors toward mental illness.

This study aimed to examine the mechanism underlie contact and stigma change by knowledge.

A total of 366 participants including family members (FM), mental health providers (MHP), and community residents (CR) recruited across communities in Hong Kong and completed measures of contact level, contact quantity, contact quality, mental health related knowledge, prejudice, and discriminatory behaviors. Structural equation modeling was adopted to test the association among the key variables.

Higher level of contact was significantly correlated with better knowledge, less prejudice, and less discriminatory behaviors. Knowledge was directly and negatively correlated with prejudicial attitudes but was not significantly related to discriminatory behaviors. Furthermore, lower levels of prejudice were associated with less discriminatory behaviors.

Enhancement of contact may increase understanding toward people with mental illness (PMI) and diminish stigmatizing attitudes and behaviors. Although prejudicial attitudes may be reduced by broadening mental health knowledge, increasing knowledge only might not ameliorate discriminatory behaviors. Future research should test mediators on contact and stigma by using longitudinal data.

People with mental illness are vulnerable to abuse in the community. Cultural and social practices may be contributory.

To explore the social representation of abuse of persons with mental illness among the inhabitants of Jakiri municipality in Cameroon.

This was a qualitative study based on the Theory of Reasoned Action, conducted in 2018 among 11 inhabitants of Jakiri municipality, aged above 18 years and who had lived in the town for at least 2 years. In-depth face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted. Data were analyzed using the basic thematic approach.

The belief that mental illness is incurable, a curse from the gods, a result of witchcraft, and a punishment for violation of core social norms were identified as the reasons for physical violence against persons with mental illness. Beliefs that persons with mental illness were disorganized, destructive, physically aggressive, and dependent on others were identified as reasons for emotional abuse.

A misconception of mental illness was the major underlying factor for the abuse of persons with mental illness.