Hearing voices groups (HVGs) are effective avenues of support for people who hear voices in the general population yet their application and adaptation for people with learning disabilities who hear voices are scarce.. To read the full article, log in using your NHS Athens details. To access full-text: click “Log in/Register” (top right hand side). Click ‘Institutional Login’ then select 'OpenAthens Federation', then ‘NHS England’. Enter your Athens details to view the article.
This study is important because it raises awareness of available resources, such as HVGs and peer support, from which people who hear voices can access care outside mental health services. The findings can be used to inform further training for professionals working in secondary care mental health services (i.e., CMHTs) and/or those supporting people who hear voices. Healthcare professionals should be aware of the benefits of HVGs and other groups and encourage collaborations between HVGs and the NHS (i.e., via signposting or community referrals).
Commentary. ‘Deprescribing’ here comprises arguments against treating patients who have been psychotic beyond first episode. Nevertheless, four out of five patients relapse, compared with only two of five still taking medication. However, much first-episode psychosis is not schizophrenia, but persistent substance-induced psychotic disorder. Virtually nothing is known about factors which facilitate this in the minority who develop it, nor how to decide if the patient will relapse off medication. Patients who are well, stable and tolerating minimal doses of medication should be the first to suggest that they try to do without it, not us.. To read the full article, log in using your MPFT NHS OpenAthens details. SSOTP (legacy account) - You can request a copy of this article by replying to this email. Please ensure you are clear which article you are requesting.
Marie Stenlund’s careful reading of values-based practice and her demonstration of its links with Martha Nussbaum’s Capabilities Framework are innovative theoretically and have potentially important implications for policy and practice in mental health. As she indicates the two approaches converge in a number of key respects. Notably, both recognise the diversity of individual human values. This diversity crucially underpins contemporary person-centred conceptions of recovery in mental health based on quality of life as defined by reference to the values of (to what is important from the perspective of) the person concerned rather than that of a generic professional ‘needs assessment’.1 2. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
What's it like to have schizoaffective disorder? Here, Alice describes her journey from being diagnosed and prescribed medication to starting talking therapy with the help of a friend.