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Perinatal drug users are a marginalized group at risk of depression and parenting stress. This study aims to inform service development by determining key components needed to reduce depression among this population by triangulating data from qualitative interviews with service users and their care providers.

Pre and post natal in‐depth qualitative interviews with drug users attending a specialist antenatal clinic in Melbourne, Australia, and their care providers were conducted; and an email survey of experts was undertaken. Twenty‐eight interviews were conducted and the views of ten experts were received. Data from these sources were triangulated to determine the key components of an intervention to reduce depression among perinatal drug users.

There was high concordance among data sources. Key service components identified were: case management; extended postnatal care; access to mental health services and drug treatment including relapse prevention; parenting support, and housing support. Judgmental attitudes from healthcare staff and the fear of child protection may be barriers to accessing services.

The study findings are limited by the small sample size.

Services should be enhanced in pregnancy and the early parenting years to build a service model that incorporates the key components identified in this study and supported in the literature.

The originality and value of this study is that it determines the key service components needed to reduce depression among perinatal drug users by triangulating their experiences and views, that of their care providers and expert opinion.

This study aims to evaluate differences between substance dependent men who were arrested for intimate partner violence (IPV) with and without concurrent psychiatric problems.

In total, 63 participants were randomly assigned to manual‐guided group behavioral therapies (cognitive behavioral therapy for substance dependent domestic violence offenders (SADV) or drug counseling (DC)) and assessed across 12 weeks of treatment.

Despite excluding psychotic disorders and bipolar disorders at baseline, 23 percent of clients reported prior mental health treatment. SADV participants with co‐occurring mental health were different than SADV participants without co‐occurring mental health symptoms on both baseline and post‐treatment time periods. SADV participants with co‐occurring mental health symptoms had more pre‐treatment impairments, more drug use during treatment, a trend for more problems with aggressive behaviors throughout treatment and significantly more impairments in anger control subscales at post treatment compared to SADV participants without co‐occurring mental health symptoms.

The findings suggest the need to target and treat co‐occurring psychiatric symptoms and distress among SADV offenders. Perhaps offering clients targeted behavioral or pharmacotherapy adjunctive treatments can help improve treatment outcomes among substance dependent offenders of IPV when mental health problems are present.

This study is one of the first to evaluate differences between substance dependent men arrested for IPV with and without concurrent psychiatric problems. It shows that men who are violent toward their partners tend to have a co‐occurring problem with addiction, yet little is known about differences between substance dependent male offenders who have dual mental health problems.

Improvement in Access to Treatment for People with Alcohol and Drug Related Problems (IATPAD) was a European study that detected barriers and facilitators to accessing treatment for patients with alcohol and drug‐related problems. This article seeks to compare the findings from a qualitative study with patients and staff in Catalunya (Spain).

The paper describes a multi‐centre, qualitative study. A purposive sample of 47 staff, from a randomly selected sample of the three main entrance points to treatment for patients with alcohol and drug problems in Catalunya, were recruited from: Out‐patient General Psychiatry Centres (CSMA); Out‐patient Addiction Centres (CAS); and Primary Care Centres (CAP). In addition, open‐ended responses were collated from 142 additional staff on barriers and facilitators to accessing treatment for patients with alcohol and drug problems and how these barriers could be improved. A total of 25 patients from two CAS were interviewed in‐depth. The framework approach was used to interpret qualitative interviews.

The main barriers and facilitators to accessing treatment identified by staff and patients were patients' motivation, centres' opening hours, staff attitudes, the provision of information about services, and the co‐ordination and integration of different services – mainly the mental health and addiction sectors.

This paper describes and compares the main barriers and facilitators to accessing treatment from both staff and patients' point of view. Recommendations are made in order to improve service accessibility for patients with addiction problems and those with a dual diagnosis.

This paper's aim is to provide an overview of how to respond to alcohol use/abuse and intimate partner violence for men and women attending primary care.

The paper describes the role of family practitioners in identifying patients in primary care who have dual problems of substance use and intimate partner violence.

Primary care is a potential site of early intervention using brief counselling techniques for male perpetrators and female victims of intimate partner violence who also have hazardous or harmful drinking.

Practitioners should be aware of the overlap between these two social public health problems and how to respond.

Practitioners often do not identify the hidden issue of intimate partner violence.

People with a history of depression are more likely to smoke and less likely to achieve abstinence from smoking long term. The purpose of this paper is to understand the factors associated with smoking and smoking cessation among patients with depression.

This paper reports on smoking prevalence and cessation in a cohort of 789 primary care attendees with depressive symptoms (Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale score of=16) recruited from 30 randomly selected Primary Care Practices in Victoria, Australia in 2005.

At baseline, 32 per cent of participants smoked. Smokers were more likely to be male, unmarried, receive government benefits, have difficulty managing on available income, have emphysema, a chronic illness, poor self-rated health, to have more severe depressive and anxiety symptoms, to be taking anti-depressants, to be hazardous drinkers, to report suicidal ideation and to have experienced childhood physical or sexual abuse. At 12 months, 20 participants reported quitting. Females and people with good or better self-rated health were significantly more likely to have quit, while people with a chronic illness or suicidal ideation were less likely to quit. Smoking cessation was not associated with increases in depression or anxiety symptoms. Only six participants remained quit over four years.

Rates of smoking were high, and long-term cessation was low among primary care patients with depressive symptoms. Primary care physicians should provide additional monitoring and support to assist smokers with depression quit and remain quit.

This is the first naturalistic study of smoking patterns among primary care attendees with depressive symptoms.

AVA (Against Violence & Abuse) is funded by the Department of Health to deliver the Stella Project Mental Health Initiative. This project aims to develop and implement models of good practice for responding to survivors and perpetrators of abuse who also have a dual diagnosis. Marking the project's halfway point, this article aims to review what is already understood to be best practice in this area, to present the initial learning from the project evaluation, and to consider the most effective ways of promoting and enabling behaviour change among practitioners.

The research design for the evaluation is a mixed methods evaluation, drawing on both prospective and retrospective research techniques. The design was developed within an action research framework.

In line with other research, levels of routine enquiry or enquiry about experiences of violence were low amongst staff from all organisations participating in the project. In comparison staff seem somewhat more likely to enquire about substance misuse and mental health issues. Wide variation in attendance at training was found with a complex relationship between training and confidence emerging.

This paper adds to the growing evidence base to suggest that a lot more training, organisational support and research is needed to ensure that professionals who have contact with women who have experienced abuse, have mental health or substance use problems are asking their clients about all three issues, making appropriate referrals and ensuring victims with complex needs having access to protection and support.

Few studies have examined the parenting of fathers with co‐occurring substance abuse (SA) and intimate partner violence (IPV) problems. None have specifically interviewed men with these co‐occurring issues using qualitative methods about their reflective functioning in relation to their children. This paper aims to provide evidence of the reflective capacity of fathers with co‐occurring SA and IPV.

To assess this, men were asked to describe examples of negative emotions they experienced as parents and how they perceived their children responded to those emotions. In total, 40 fathers with co‐occurring SA and IPV were interviewed using the Revised Parent Development Interview. Interviews were coded for reflective functioning and for themes that emerged related to angry and guilty feelings these fathers experienced as parents.

Overall, fathers in the sample had a very limited capacity to think about the thoughts and feelings of their children. The desire to spend more time with their child and an inability to provide financially were two common themes. Anger toward the child's mother for not providing adequate care and a focus on shielding the child from his anger were also reported frequently. Fathers did not report feelings of guilt related to their substance use or aggression in their relationships.

This paper is one of the first to explore reflective functioning of fathers with co‐occurring IPV and SA. These findings are discussed in relation to their implications for intervention with fathers with co‐occurring SA and IPV issues.