Social psychiatry and sociology

Decreasing public interest in social psychiatry: An infodemiological study of worldwide Google search volumes from 2004 to 2021

BACKGROUND

While mental disorder is an 'intrinsically social phenomenon', social psychiatry has been reportedly declining. Addressing public interests in social psychiatry was among the suggestions to address this decline. In recent years, public interest in social psychiatry can be explored using Google Trends, an increasingly important infodemiological tool.

OBJECTIVE

This study determined changes in global online public interest in social psychiatry from January 2004 to December 2021 using Google search volumes.

METHODS

Search query using this keyword, 'Social Psychiatry (Topic)', was made using the Explore feature of Google Trends. The Region and Time Filters were set to 'Worldwide' and January 2004 to December 2021, respectively. Afterward, the search volumes, country ranking, queries, and topics returned by the Google Trends system was described and compared.

RESULTS

There was a generally decreasing trend in search volumes for social psychiatry where it decreased almost 10 times between 2004 and 2021. Only 11 countries were listed in Google Trends' ranking with the top countries including Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Search-related topics and queries were about social psychiatry related concepts, related academic discipline, human resources, social interventions, and education activities.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings suggest that there is a decreasing public interest in social psychiatry. To improve this, social psychiatry can address public expectation through improving its connection with allied social sciences, increasing its educational activities, and expanding its social intervention services.

Stigmatization of people diagnosed with a mental disorder in secondary mental health centers in Chile: An ethnographic study

To understand how stigmatization of people diagnosed with a mental disorder occurs in secondary mental healthcare staff in mental healthcare centers in Chile was the objective of the study. A descriptive qualitative and interpretative design with an ethnographic approach was used. Participants' observations, ethnographic, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with professionals at three secondary mental health centers. Qualitative descriptive and interpretative content analysis was used. Stigmatization of users is shaping up in their trajectory in the health center. Identity changes from person to "patient," which generates dependence on the expert role of healthcare professionals. Stigma is expressed in the interactions between a health institution, a professional team, and a user, reproducing power and control relationships associated with the biomedical model and reinforcing a cycle of chronification in the user. Health teams are stressed by discrepancies between the current mental health policy and the user's biomedical understanding.

Stigma, Social Structure, and the Biomedical Framework: Exploring the Stigma Experiences of Inpatient Service Users in Two Belgian Psychiatric Hospitals

The study discusses the stigma experiences of service users in mental health care, within the debate on the role of the biomedical framework for mental health care and power relations in society. Interview data of inpatient users ( n = 42) and care providers ( n = 43) from two Belgian psychiatric hospitals were analyzed using a constructivist grounded theory approach: Findings offer insight into how stigma experiences are affected by social structure. Stigma seemed to be related to the relation between care providers and service users their social position. The concept "mental health literacy" is used to frame this finding. In paying attention to the specific cultural and normative context, which influences the relationship between mental health literacy and stigma, it is further possible to cast some light on the meaning of the biomedical model for the construction and maintenance of power relations in mental health care and broader society.

Re-framing the problem of workplace violence directed towards nurses in mental health services in the UK: a work in progress

BACKGROUND

Research consistently suggests nurses working in mental health settings are more likely to be assaulted than nurses in other settings.

AIMS

Belated recognition of the issue in terms of social policy (Elston et al. 2006) has been accompanied by an as yet unexamined contest between conflicting 'frames' of the problem, which this paper seeks to make transparent.

METHOD

Frame analysis.

RESULTS

Two distinct 'master' frames are discussed: the 'individualizing' and the 'co-creationist'.

CONCLUSIONS

The influence of these frames has influenced the nature of responses to the problem but the recent dominance of the individualizing frame is being challenged by the emergence, or perhaps re-emergence, of co-creationism.

Integrating health and social care in community mental health teams in the UK: a study of assessments and eligibility criteria in England

The purpose of this cross-sectional survey was to examine the relationship between assessments and eligibility decisions made by health and social care staff in multidisciplinary community teams in England. The data were collected between December 2004 and August 2005. The study was a replication of a study that took place in the same eight locations in England before the modernization of health and social care by the present government. Four hundred and thirteen care coordinators responded from 71 teams to produce a total of 1481 clients. Sixty per cent (n = 884) of the sample of clients were categorised as having a psychotic illness compared to 63% in 1997 to 1998. Fair Access to Care Services (FACS) criteria determine access to social care services, and the Care Programme Approach (CPA) determines the level of mental health services provided. There was a close but an incomplete association between FACS and CPA judgements (kappa = 0.37; 95% confidence interval 0.31-0.43). Compared to the standardised Matching Resources to Care version 2 indication of complex needs, social workers' judgements were the most closely aligned to FACS judgements (F = 5.80; d.f. = 2 and 1203; P < 0.01). This raises the question of the need for training for health professionals in order to make decisions about social assessment and eligibility determination.

Neighbourhood-level effects on psychoses: re-examining the role of context

BACKGROUND

The incidence of schizophrenia varies by individual-level characteristics and neighbourhood-level attributes. Few specific socio-environmental risk factors (SERFs) have been identified at the neighbourhood level. Cross-level interactions are poorly understood. We investigated these issues using data from the Aetiology and Ethnicity in Schizophrenia and Other Psychoses (AESOP) study.

METHOD

All incidence cases of ICD-10 schizophrenia (F20) and other non-affective psychoses (F21-29), aged 16-64 years, across 33 wards in Southeast London were identified over a 2-year period (1997-1999). Census data provided the denominator for each ward. Multilevel Poisson regression simultaneously modelled individual- and neighbourhood-level SERFs, including socio-economic deprivation, voter turnout (proxy for social capital), ethnic fragmentation (segregation) and ethnic density.

RESULTS

A total of 218 subjects were identified during 565 576 person-years at risk. Twenty-three per cent of variance in incidence of schizophrenia across wards could be attributed to neighbourhood-level risk factors [95% confidence interval (CI) 9.9-42.2]. Thus, 1% increases in voter turnout [incidence rate ratio (IRR) 0.95, 95% CI 0.92-0.99] and ethnic segregation (IRR 0.95, 95% CI 0.92-0.99) were both independently associated with a reduced incidence of 5%, independent of age, sex, ethnicity, deprivation and population density. This was similar for other non-affective psychoses. There was some evidence that ethnic minority individuals were at greater risk of schizophrenia in areas with smaller proportions of minority groups (p=0.07).

CONCLUSION

SERFs at individual and neighbourhood levels were implicated in the aetiology of psychosis, but we were unable to determine whether these associations were causal. Individual risk may be mediated by social capital, which could operate as a protective factor, perhaps moderating social stress in the onset of psychoses.