Alcohol use disorders: a mental health not a moral issue

The prevalence of alcohol use disorders (AUD) and associated alcohol related harm amongst women in the community can compromise their mental and physical health (Foster et al. 2014)

Giving women a voice - narratives on accessing (or not) drug and alcohol services

Abstract of a presentation at the ADDICTION 2015: the Australian & New Zealand Addiction Conference, Gold Coast, Australia, 20-22 May

Stimulating an interest in mental health nursing

A team of researchers at the University of Wollongong are currently examining the experiences of Bachelor of Nursing (BN) students as they engage in a stimulating learning experience in mental health

Interdisciplinary capstone course: synthesising theory and practice through an innovative mental health clinical placement

Given that people with a mental illness have a range of biopsychosocial needs, care and treatment is complex and is best delivered by a multidisciplinary team. In order for future health professionals to learn skills to understand consumers from an individualised and holistic perspective, students from Nursing, Psychology, Exercise Physiology and Dietetics participated in a therapeutic Recovery Camp alongside 30 people with a mental illness. The camp aimed to envelope consumers and students within an experience of therapeutic recovery. This interdisciplinary capstone course was to achieve learning outcomes via immersion in various indoor and outdoor activities nested within a strengths-based five-day camp held in the Australian bush. Students from different disciplines learned from and educated each other. They applied skills learned in theory in what can only be described as an innovative practice setting. The setting formed a fundamental part of the therapeutic milieu and students learned that a \u27clinic\u27, \u27unit,\u27 or \u27formal setting\u27 isn\u27t the only way care and treatment can be delivered to this marginalised and vulnerable group. This paper showcases how students from various disciplines worked with and learned from people with a mental illness

Self-determination in the context of mental health recovery

Approximately one in every five Australians will experience a mental illness each year (ABS, 2007). Mental illnesses are not homogenous. There are no clearly established clinical pathways and, as such, care and treatment is necessarily highly individualised

Can a clinical placement influence stigma? An analysis of measures of social distance

Background The way people who experience mental illness are perceived by health care professionals, which often includes stigmatising attitudes, can have a significant impact on treatment outcomes and on their quality of life. Objective To determine whether stigma towards people with mental illness varied for undergraduate nursing students who attended a non-traditional clinical placement called Recovery Camp compared to students who attended a \u27typical\u27 mental health clinical placement. Design Quasi-experimental. Participants Seventy-nine third-year nursing students were surveyed; n = 40 attended Recovery Camp (intervention), n = 39 (comparison group) attended a \u27typical\u27 mental health clinical placement. Methods All students completed the Social Distance Scale (SDS) pre- and post-placement and at three-month follow-up. Data analysis consisted of a one-way repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) exploring parameter estimates between group scores across three time points. Two secondary repeated measures ANOVAs were performed to demonstrate the differences in SDS scores for each group across time. Pairwise comparisons demonstrated the differences between time intervals. Results A statistically significant difference in ratings of stigma between the intervention group and the comparison group existed. Parameter estimates revealed that stigma ratings for the intervention group were significantly reduced post-placement and remained consistently low at three-month follow-up. There was no significant difference in ratings of stigma for the comparison group over time. Conclusions Students who attended Recovery Camp reported significant decreases in stigma towards people with a mental illness over time, compared to the typical placement group. Findings suggest that a therapeutic recreation based clinical placement was more successful in reducing stigma regarding mental illness in undergraduate nursing students compared to those who attended typical mental health clinical placements

Women and alcohol: a phenomenological exploration of women’s decisions to engage with drug and alcohol services

The aim of this study was to explore the meaning that women who live with alcohol-use disorders attributed to their decisions to engage with drug and alcohol services. Women, alcohol and alcohol-use disorders are under-researched topics when compared to the abundance of studies on male alcohol consumption and its related harms. In particular, there is nearly silence on the discourse about the lived experience of women who consume harmful levels of alcohol and live with alcohol-use disorders (AUDs). In order to understand and interpret the essence of meaning behind the reasons why the 15 women participants made their decisions to engage with services, a phenomenological approach was used. More specifically, van Manen’s (1997) methodological framework provided a structure and a guide to the phenomenological enquiry into the lifeworld’s of the women participants. The research study was designed in a way so as to answer the question: ‘what does it ‘mean’ for a woman with an alcohol-use disorder to engage with services’. So as to encourage the women to share their stories and uncover meanings in their experiences, semi-structured, one-on-one interviews were the methods used to collect the data. NVivo 10TM data analysis software was used to capture the interview transcripts and to analyse and explore the 15 texts. van Manen’s (1997) method for isolating thematic statements formed the basis of this analysis. Within the women’s story-telling, an exploration of the essential, unified themes were uncovered and portrayed These themes, which follow, centre on the women discovering their ‘Dislike for Alcohol’, ‘Overcoming Barriers’ to service engagement, prevailing over a ‘Sense of Enforcement’ to engage with services and bouncing back from reaching ‘Rock Bottom’. Deeply embedded within the scenes in the women’s story-telling was the essence of their experiences – the meaning that each woman ascribed to her decision to engage with services. This essence was found to be the woman arriving at her ‘conceptualisation of the need for change’ in terms of her service-seeking behaviours. Implications for researchers and drug and alcohol service providers’ explore the subjective views of women with AUDs. In particular the unique, contextual factors that characterise a woman’s lifeworld in terms of her developing and living with an AUD should be understood and privileged

Falling between the \u27service cracks\u27: women living with Alcohol-Related Brain Injury (ARBI)

Abstract of paper that presented at the 1st Australasian Mental Health and Addiction Nursing Conference

Explaining social exclusion in alcohol-related dementia: a literature review

Background: The purpose of our project is to explore the lived experience of people with alcohol-related dementia and their carers to explain the impact of social exclusion. The literature review has been completed. The empirical study will be a qualitative study using narrative storylines (Keady et al., 2009) to understand the Australian experience of alcohol-related dementia. Methods: Academic and publishers’ databases (CINAHL, ScienceDirect, Wiley Interscience and SAGE) were searched using the terms: ‘alcohol-related dementia’, ‘diagnosis’, ‘carer’, ‘services’, ‘treatment’ and ‘stigma’. Snowballing techniques were also used to source papers and Google Scholar for grey literature. Findings: A total of 35 articles were retrieved and reviewed. An overall theme of social exclusion was found to explain the experience of people with alcohol-related dementia and their carers. There were 7 sub-themes discovered to explain this social exclusion: (1) stigma; (2) homelessness; (3) under-recognition and lack of timely diagnosis; (4) inappropriate service provision; (5) carer education needs; (6) carer needs ignored and (7) recovery pathways. Conclusion and Implications for Practice: The findings from the literature review illustrate that before people with alcohol-related dementia and their carers can have an opportunity to adequately live with alcohol-related dementia the issue of social exclusion must be addressed. Our proposed empirical study will provide a voice for those with alcohol-related dementia and their carers and understand how social exclusion can be addressed to improve the quality of life for people with an alcohol-related dementia and their carers

Support and services for people with alcohol-related brain injury

Integrated treatment and support from both mental health services and drug and alcohol treatment services is needed for those living with alcohol-related brain injury. This is because alcohol-related brain injury (ARBI) remains a forgotten disorder