Around 40% of mental health professionals experience emotional exhaustion, but do the interventions designed to help them actually work? A new review suggests the answer is more complicated than most ward managers would like.
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FINCH trial of 80 people showed crisis planning intervention was feasible to deliver in NHS settings. Results leaned towards fewer repeat detentions, but study not designed to prove effectiveness.
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Suicide risk following involuntary psychiatric care remains elevated for years, with highest risk in the first month. Personality disorder patients face greatest long-term vulnerability.
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Mental health admissions to acute medical wards rose 65% for young people in England (2012-2022), with eating disorder admissions up 515% and anxiety admissions doubling in 10 years. Self-harm admissions accounted for more than half of the total. Adolescent girls by far the biggest group affected.
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This large-scale quality improvement project across 55 mental health wards tested Board Relay, Zonal Observations, and Life Skills activities to improve therapeutic engagement. Results showed promising reductions in aggression, restrictive practices, and staff sickness.
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The Co-Pact study uses powerful images and narratives from 48 people to reveal how compulsory admission under the Mental Health Act is experienced by racially minoritised communities. Participants described coercive care, institutional racism, and being “voiceless”, but also what could prevent crisis admissions.
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How often do people with eating disorders switch diagnoses, recover, or relapse? This large Danish study follows more than 10,000 people over nearly a decade, uncovering patterns of remission and genetic vulnerability that could help shape more personalised care.
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Psychiatric hospitalisation can save lives, but it also carries major personal and economic costs. Could early warning scores help predict who’s most at risk, allowing for earlier, more targeted support? This new BMJ Mental Health study by Taquet and colleagues explores the potential.
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Informal coercion – the subtle pressure patients feel in psychiatric care – is common but poorly understood. A new scoping review sheds light on how it’s defined, where it happens, and why it matters for patients and professionals alike.
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Amber Jarvis summarises a new typology of alternatives to standard inpatient care produced by the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Mental Health, which suggests there are multiple alternatives to ‘traditional’ inpatient mental health care, which planners and commissioners should consider.
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