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There is a proportion of psychiatric service users whose needs are not met by existing models of care. This can lead to a reliance on acute and crisis services. These service users may be considered high intensity users (HIUs). The purpose of this research is to evaluate the Crisis Plus model, an intervention designed to better support HIUs in the community and reduce dependency on acute and crisis services.

Forty-seven HIUs were involved in Crisis Plus. The core intervention of Crisis Plus was an Anticipatory Management Plan (AMP), produced in collaboration with service users, their families and their care coordinators. AMPs were shared with relevant services and attached to electronic patient notes to ensure a uniform, psychologically informed approach to care.

HIU service use was compared pre and post-AMP. On average, number of inpatient admissions, number of days spent on the ward, accepted psychiatric liaison referrals and accepted home treatment team (HTT) referrals decreased significantly.

Crisis Plus has taken a collaborative, proactive approach to engage HIUs, their families and the services that care for them. Crisis interventions that emphasise collaborative working and service user agency are key.

The provision of dedicated psychological support to HIUs and their professional and personal network is crucial to reduce reliance on acute and crisis care. Crisis Plus is unique in that it instigates co-production and active consultation with HIUs and services to improve clinical outcomes, in addition to reducing NHS expenditure.

The paper examines the historical shifts in policing strategies towards individuals with SMI and vulnerable populations, highlighting the development of co-response models, introducing the concept of “untethered” co-response.

This paper conducts a review of literature to trace the evolution of police responses to individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) and vulnerable populations. It categorizes four generations of police approaches—zero-policing, over-policing, crisis intervention and co-response—and introduces a fifth generation, the “untethered” co-response model exemplified by Project SCOPE in Philadelphia.

The review identifies historical patterns of police response to SMI individuals, emphasizing the challenges and consequences associated with over-policing. It outlines the evolution from crisis intervention teams to co-response models and introduces Project SCOPE as an innovative “untethered” co-response approach.

The research acknowledges the challenges in evaluating the effectiveness of crisis intervention teams and co-response models due to variations in implementation and limited standardized models. It emphasizes the need for more rigorous research, including randomized controlled trials, to substantiate claims about the effectiveness of these models.

The paper suggests that the “untethered” co-response model, exemplified by Project SCOPE, has the potential to positively impact criminal justice and social service outcomes for vulnerable populations. It encourages ongoing policy and evaluative research to inform evidence-based practice and mitigate collateral harms associated with policing responses.

Given the rising interactions between police and individuals with mental health issues, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the paper highlights the urgency for innovative, non-policing-driven responses to vulnerable persons.

The paper contributes to the literature by proposing a fifth generation of police response to vulnerable persons, the “untethered” co-response model and presenting Project SCOPE as a practical example.

This paper aims to explore the roles of psychologists in seclusion in adult mental health services in Ireland, their perspectives on seclusion and its use in recovery-oriented practice and related professional practice issues.

A qualitative hermeneutic phenomenological study was conducted from a social constructivist perspective. Semi-structured interviews with 17 psychologists were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.

Twenty-four themes were identified, which were clustered into four overarching themes. Participants viewed themselves and psychology in Ireland more broadly as peripheral to seclusion. They believed that seclusion possessed no inherent therapeutic value but viewed it as an uncomfortable and multi-faceted reality. Participants regarded seclusion and recovery as largely inconsistent and difficult to reconcile, and they perceived systemic factors, which had a pervasive negative impact on seclusion and recovery in practice.

The findings highlight the perceived complexity of seclusion and its interface with recovery, and the need to conscientiously balance conflicting priorities that cannot be easily reconciled to ensure ethical practice. The findings suggest psychologists are well-suited to participate in local and national discussions on using seclusion in recovery-oriented practice.

This study offers a unique insight into psychologists’ perceptions of seclusion and considers the implications of these views. Participants’ nuanced views suggest that psychologists can make valuable contributions to local and national discussions on these topics.

Remand prisoners (RPs) are known to be in a more vulnerable situation than those already convicted. Beyond the difficulties to adapt to the prison, RP also tend to experience tough circumstances due to the uncertainty of their future. This study aims to further test the psychometric properties of the Suicide Concerns for Offenders in the Prison Environment (SCOPE-2) in a sample of RP.

The authors have carried out a confirmatory factor analysis to test the psychometric qualities of the SCOPE-2. The authors tested the originally proposed two-factor structure composed of two subscales: optimism and protective self-worth. Also, the authors examined internal consistency through Cronbach’s alphas. Convergent validity was tested by correlational analyses between SCOPE-2 subscales and the Suicide Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised and Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) total scores. Finally, the authors have tested known-groups validity by carrying out discriminant analysis by testing the SCOPE-2 subscales’ ability to predict belonging to a group with previous suicide attempts.

The confirmatory factor analysis showed an acceptable model fit, even though the subscale “Protective self-worth” presented a less acceptable fit. The correlation analysis supported the convergent validity of the SCOPE-2. Both the “Optimism” and “Protective self-worth” subscales showed a positive correlation with the total scores of BSI. Finally, the Portuguese version of SCOPE-2 also showed known groups validity. Concretely, the “Optimism” scores revealed an acceptable predictive accuracy.

This study embraces important contributions to the practice as it was the first study to validate a measure to assess vulnerability for suicide and self-harm in male and female RP.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this was the first study to validate an instrument to assess vulnerability for suicide and self-harm in both male and female pretrial detainees. Knowing their particular case, as well as the lack of responses for these individuals, it is particularly important to access suicide concerns that could precede suicide attempts.

People with pre-existing mental health conditions are more likely to be affected by global crises. The Covid-19 pandemic has presented them with unique challenges, including reduced contact with the psychiatric rehabilitation and support systems. Thus, understanding the emotional experience of this population may assist mental health organizations in future global crises.

In this paper, researchers analyzed the discourse of the mentally ill during the Covid-19 pandemic, as reflected in Israeli Facebook groups: three private groups and one public group. Researchers explored the language, reactions, emotions and sentiments used in these groups during the year before the pandemic, outbreak periods and remission periods, as well as the period before the vaccine’s introduction and after its appearance.

Analyzing groups’ discourse using the collective emotion theory suggests that the group that expressed the most significant difficulty was the Depression group, while individuals who suffer from social phobia/anxiety and PTSD were less affected during the lockdowns and restrictions forced by the outbreak.

Findings may serve as a tool for service providers during crises to monitor patients’ conditions, and assist individuals who need support and help.

This preliminary investigation aims to examine the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on patients and staff within a high secure service.

To discern the connection between COVID-19-related distress and multiple factors, the study involved 31 patients and 34 staff who completed assessments evaluating coping strategies, resilience, emotional reactivity, ward atmosphere and work-related aspects.

Results demonstrated that around a third of staff (31.2%) experienced COVID-19-related distress levels that met the clinical cut-off for possible post-traumatic stress disorder. Emotional reactivity, staff shortages, secondary traumatic stress and coping strategies were all positively correlated with COVID-19-related-distress. Resilience was negatively associated with distress, thus acting as a potential mitigating factor. In comparison, the prevalence of distress among patients was low (3.2%).

The authors postulate that increased staff burdens during the pandemic may have led to long-term distress, while their efforts to maintain minimal service disruption potentially shielded patients from psychological impacts, possibly lead to staff “problem-focused coping burnout”. This highlights the need for in-depth research on the enduring impacts of pandemics, focusing on mechanisms that intensify or alleviate distress. Future studies should focus on identifying effective coping strategies for crisis situations, such as staff shortages, and strategies for post-crisis staff support.

The authors postulate that the added burdens on staff during the pandemic might have contributed to their distress. Nonetheless, staff might have inadvertently safeguarded patients from the pandemic’s psychological ramifications by providing a “service of little disruption”, potentially leading to “problem-focused coping burnout”. These findings underscore the imperative for further research capturing the enduring impacts of pandemics, particularly scrutinising factors that illuminate the mechanisms through which distress is either intensified or alleviated across different groups. An avenue worth exploring is identifying effective coping styles for pandemics.

This study aims to describe patients presented in an interprofessional, virtual education program focused on the mental health of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), as well as present interprofessional recommendations for care.

In this retrospective chart review, descriptive statistics were used to describe patients. Content analysis was used to analyze interprofessional recommendations. The authors used the H.E.L.P. (health, environment, lived experience and psychiatric disorder) framework to conceptualize and analyze the interprofessional recommendations.

Themes related to the needs of adults with IDD are presented according to the H.E.L.P. framework. Taking a team-based approach to care, as well as ensuring care provider knowledge of health and social histories, may help better tailor care.

This project draws on knowledge presented in a national interprofessional and intersectoral educational initiative, the first in Canada to focus on this population.

This study aims to identify the major job stressors that can affect employees’ mental health in the Lebanese commercial banks during the economic turmoil. This study also aims to identify the effects of the mental problems on the employees in addition to the role of human resources in promoting and preventing mental well-being at the workplace.

The authors interviewed 28 bank employees and the semi-structured interviews last for around 50 min, starting by asking the employees a general question about the concept of mental health disorder. The authors used a purposive sampling in which the population sample is selected based on purpose and the characteristics of a specific category of individuals. Moreover, a thematic analysis is used to analyze the data.

The findings of this study indicate that most of the employees were suffering from many work-related stressors that have negatively affected their mental well-being. The stress and pressures have significantly increased during the economic crisis. However, most of the interviewees were not or rarely supported by their human resources department and their administration to help them get adapted for such a crisis or for the changes at the workplace.

Mental health disorders are present in the daily normal life and in the workplace as well. The banking industry is not an exceptional one.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to unprecedented mental health repercussions in the lives of every individual including university students. Therefore, study on students’ psychological state and its associated factors during the pandemic are of importance. This study aims to discuss the aforementioned issue.

An online survey was done on a total of 207 university students of Pakistan to collect information on socio-demographic characteristics, concerns or fears amidst COVID-19 and mental distress. Validated tools; Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7) and Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9)-Depression were used to assess stress, anxiety and depression, respectively.

Around 14% of the university students were experiencing severe stress and anxiety, while 8.2% had severe depression. The authors found that stress among university students was related to psychiatric illness or symptoms (OR = 5.1: 1.1, 22.9) and unpredictability due to the pandemic (OR = 3.7: 1.2, 11.2). The significant determinants of anxiety were psychiatric illness/symptoms (OR = 6.6: 3.4, 12.9), implementation of public health measures (OR = 3.7: 1.1, 11.6), employed mothers (OR = 2.4: 1.1, 5.0) and lack of support from university administration (OR = 2.2: 1.0, 5.0). While the factors associated with depression included psychiatric illness or symptoms (OR = 8.4: 3.3, 21.5), unpredictability due to pandemic (OR = 6.8: 2.2, 20.7), impaired social support system (OR = 3.7: 1.3, 10.4) and studying without a scholarship (OR = 2.1: 1.0, 4.4).

These findings call for an urgent need to develop appropriate interventions and educational programs that could address the psychological needs of students.

The study directs the role of university and faculty in dealing the mental health needs of the student in COVID-19 pandemic time.

Educational programs are important that could address the psychological needs of students in COVID-19 pandemic.

University students reported mental distress during COVID-19 pandemic which shows that younger people are at risk of COVID-19 repercussions. Moreover, several stressors (i.e. impaired social support system and lack of support from universities) were revealed that could be mitigated by implementing appropriate strategies.

This paper aims to study the influence of leisure-time physical activity on depression crises and the difficulty in performing light household tasks.

A population-based cross-sectional study was conducted using data from the 2020 European Health Survey in Spain. A total of 1,076 individuals diagnosed with depression were selected. ANOVA, chi-square, Fisher’s exact test and Mann–Whitney U test were applied, and a simple moderation analysis was conducted using the SPSS PROCESS 4.0 macro.

Women had higher percentages of some or much difficulty in performing domestic activities (p = 0.007). Differences were found between experiencing a crisis in the past 12 months versus not having one (p < 0.001): less physical activity was performed, perceived health was worse and difficulty in performing domestic activities increased. The moderation analysis confirmed the moderating effect of physical activity on the relationship between experiencing a crisis and having difficulty with domestic activities (p = 0.017).

The usual limitation of descriptive cross-sectional studies, which cannot establish causal relationships, must be added to low sample sizes in some categories.

The analysis with gender differentiation, promoting gender-specific adapted practices, considering age and personal circumstances of the patient, appropriate exercise prescription, as well as its evaluation and follow-up, are areas where specialist nurses need to delve deeper to enhance the quality of care.

Leisure-time physical activity moderates the relationship between experiencing a crisis and having difficulty with light household tasks: those who engage in occasional physical activity have less difficulty compared to those who do not engage in it.