Welfare Reform on the Web (March 2008): Mental health services - overseas

Advance directives in mental health: theory, practice and ethics

J. M. Atkinson

London: J. Kingsley, 2007

An advance directive is a way of making a person's views known if he or she should become mentally incapable of giving consent to treatment, or making informed choices about treatment, at some future time. This book offers advice on the treatment choices available to service users and health professionals in the event of future episodes of mental illness, covering all ideological, legal and medical aspects of advance directives. It explains their origins and significance in the context of mental health legislation and compares advance directives in mental health with those in other areas of medicine like dementia or terminal illness, offering a general overview of the differences in the laws of various English-speaking countries. It explores issues of autonomy and responsibility in mental health and gives practical advice on how to set up, implement and change advance directives.

An evidence base for mental health promotion through supported education: a practical application of Antonovsky's salutogenic model of health

I. Morrison, L.M. Stosz and S.M. Clift

International Journal of Health Promotion and Education, vol.46, no.1, 2008, p. 11-20

An evidence base is required to demonstrate the effectiveness of interventions to enable budget holders to best allocate scarce resources. This article proposes an evaluation methodology for interventions in health and social care that could offer an alternative to randomised controlled trials (RCT). This study offers an appropriate and rigorous methodology and test, retest instrument for a non-randomised controlled trial suitable for the social sciences, and especially for evaluating supported education initiatives, so that they can be properly validated and attract funding.

Should we invest in suicide prevention programs?

N. Sari and others

Journal of Socio-Economics, vol.37, 2008, p. 262-275

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people aged 18-24 in Florida. However, there is no suicide prevention programme targeting this group. This paper examines the potential impact of making two preventative programmes, general suicide education and peer support programmes, available to college students. Economic evaluation shows that both programmes are cost beneficial interventions which would create social benefits exceeding their costs.