Search results

This article describes the research and development that went into a course for people who use mental health services who might want to offer their skills and experience to help others. David Martin, who conducted the research and devised the course, is currently working for the National Schizophrenia Fellowship researching user approaches to self‐management and developing a self‐management project. He will be reporting on the outcome of this initiative in a future edition, and meanwhile would like to hear from others who have similar ideas or experiences.

The decision to offer joint replacement surgery should be viewed as entering into a long‐term relationship rather than a brief encounter. The rise of consumerism allied to the expansion of general practitioner fund‐holding and implementation of the ‘Patients' Charter’ has resulted in increased pressures on outpatient clinics, and the interface between primary and secondary care is central to the development of the NHS. The NHS reforms have produced guidelines on waiting times for outpatient attendances and operations, with the emphasis on a consultant‐based service. There are, however, no such guidelines for postoperative follow‐up.

IN The age newspaper, Dennis Pryor writes: ‘Booksellers remainder them, publishers pulp them, churches and wowsers ban them, dictators burn them, students photocopy them. Marshall Mcluhan wrote them to prove they were finished.’

Health planners in Wales are developing the notion of “health gain” as the key to shaping health care provision in Wales over the coming decade. One of the twin components of “health gain”, the idea of “adding life to years”, is both crucial and controversial. The assumptions behind, and the planning implications arising from, the notion of “adding life to years” are examined and it is argued that health gain is essentially plural, diverse and contested. It is concluded that planning for health gain offers both moral dangers and moral gains.

Using questionnaires and interviews, a survey was undertaken of publishers/producers of electronic information with regard to retention, storage and access. It was found that, although some large publishers were innovative with their use of electronic material for different purposes, many commercial publishers are only gradually getting involved with electronic production methods and few have policies on electronic archiving. Among publishers, there is a low level of awareness of the Knowledge Warehouse project and a marked disinclination to deposit material with a national electronic archive on a voluntary basis. Database producers have more interest in electronic archiving and take more measures to refresh their magnetic media. There is some evidence of material produced in electronic form only that is in danger of being deleted from databases, electronic newsletters and videotex. CD‐ROM is the medium of the future for several publishers and database producers. The archival life of various electronic media is considered, and standards relating to electronic publishing are discussed. Some initiatives in electronic archiving are described.

This chapter is written in response to ‘The Quest for Generic Ethics Principles in Social Science Research’ by David Carpenter. I address his communitarian arguments for additional principles to inform a virtue theory approach to research ethics. These require that social researchers ensure that their research is both socially and scientifically valuable, and that they ‘involve members of the public in the designing, planning, delivery, ongoing monitoring and dissemination of research’. Carpenter underpins these principles with an appeal to the common good as a balance to the more individualistic principles characteristic of principlism. I argue that enforcement of these new communitarian principles via ethical regulation would further undermine the quality of research, and especially of academic social science.

The collection of complete and accurate data is an essential prerequisite of any study that aims to produce meaningful results. Much contemporary research in orthopaedic surgery has focused on proving the superiority of one implant or technique over another and relies on data which are currently being collected by various different methods. Modern joint replacement surgery is now successful with high implant survivorship at 10 and even 20 years and any new prosthetic design could be expected to result in only a modest improvement over current results. Complete follow‐up as well as optimum data collection are therefore of particular importance to detect any such benefit. Four methods commonly used for the collection of orthopaedic data were compared in this study with the aim of finding out which techniques would automatically result in the most reliable capture of complete data without the need for labour‐intensive supervision and the use of additional resources. The information obtained has been used to re‐define the audit methods for the North West Regional Arthroplasty Register.

Substance use tends to be overlooked in nursing training. As a possible consequence, many nurses harbour ill‐informed or even negative attitudes towards drug and alcohol users. The upshot can be poor care. In a bid to tackle this problem, a group of students developed a peer‐led workshop by encouraging open debate on issues associated with illicit drug use and access to healthcare for those with substance misuse problems. What ensued was an open and frank debate that increased awareness and the thirst for more knowledge.

In 2005, the Qualitative Methods in Psychosocial Health Research Group (QMiPHR) at the University of Nottingham was established as a forum to bring together academics, researchers and practitioners with an interest in qualitative methods. The group has provided colleagues in nutrition, psychiatry, psychology, social work and sociology with a forum for discussion around the question of how qualitative research is able to contribute to understanding mental health and the development of evidence‐based treatment. As a group, we asked ourselves where we stood in relation to the use of qualitative methods in mental health. While we are unified in our view that qualitative research is important and under‐utilised in mental health research, our discussions uncovered a range of views on the underlying philosophical stance of what it means to be a qualitative researcher in mental health. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of our discussions and our view that as qualitative approaches have become more widely accepted they have largely been assimilated within the mainstream ‘medical model’ of research. In this paper, we call for researchers to re‐engage with the philosophical discussion on the role and purpose of qualitative enquiry as it applies to mental health, and for practitioners and decision‐makers to be aware of the implicit values underpinning research.