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This article presents a short, easy-to-use guideline for clinicians working with people with serious mental illness, particularly those with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, delusional disorders, other psychotic disorders, or depression with significant impact on functioning, and may be of use for those working with individuals with bipolar disorder. This guideline is not meant to supplant the more detailed, excellent clinical practice guidelines that have been developed and published. Rather, the charts and explanation presented here are designed as a step-by-step tool that clinicians can use to ensure they are following the most appropriate course of action and providing the best psychosocial rehabilitation services possible for persons with these disorders. Program managers can use this tool to evaluate the processes used in their system to ensure that appropriate services are offered for the individuals in their care. This guideline is also not meant as a substitute for comprehensive training in the practice of assessment and treatment for individuals with serious mental illness. Very little detail is provided about the disorders, appropriate assessments, and interventions because clinicians providing services to people with these disorders should have received the specialized training necessary to appropriately deliver the services needed by these individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to optimize psychosocial and cognitive development and family function of chronically ill patients who are acutely stable in a pediatric intensive care unit, the philosophy of care was changed Psychosocial development was enhanced by practices that develop trust in caregivers including change in visiting policies and consistency in caregivers Cognitive development was enhanced by increasing interaction with the environment outside of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit bed Family function was maintained by communication and family participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the progress made by the field in its short history and attempts to look at developments which seem likely to occur as the field matures. Recommendations are made for training of health psychologists in the future and a plea is made for international standardisation of health psychology training programmes at the Ph.D. level which incorporate research and clinical training. Health psychologists are further encouraged to take a more active public and political role in order to provide needed visibility for their work. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the progression of health psychology as a new field in psychology specific training programs are more and more needed. A survey of the training situation of health psychology in Northern America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand highlighted a lack of formalized training programs in most countries except the United States and Canada, as well as an enormous variety between countries on standards of training, and on the differentiation of health psychologists from clinical psychologists. For the qualification of health psychology as an independent psychological discipline a plea is made for international standardization of quality control and suggestions for the content of formalized training programs in health psychology are given. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Traditionally, in the field of alcoholism research, abstinence has been considered the sole measure of treatment success and patients found to be drinking at follow-up were automatically considered to be treatment failures. In recent years this dichotomous approach has been criticized in light of studies on post-treatment status that reveal patients to be drinking and fuctioning at an improved level. Although there has been a convergence of evidence indicating that some treated alcoholics progress toward an improved but not abstinent status, such improvement in drinking status had apparently not previously been investigated in a general population. Such was the purpose of the present study with 529 subjects. Of the persons who reported previous alcoholic drinking level from 49% to 63% reported current subcriterion drinking. It was inferred that these finding combine with the findings from treated alcoholic and other special populations to form a move pervasive perspective of movement from alcoholic to subalcoholic drinking levels. Although the authors see some overlap with the topic of moderate drinking oriented treatment programs, they view specific recommendations as premature. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]