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Abstract Background Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are severe mental illnesses that can have a significant disabling impact on the lives of people. Psychosocial interventions that stress hope and recovery as a part of a multi-dimensional approach are possibly indicated to support people with severe mental illness in facilitating recovery. Illness Management and Recovery (IMR) is a curriculum-based psychosocial intervention designed as structured program with a recovery-oriented approach. The aim of IMR is to rehabilitate people with severe mental illnesses by helping them acquire knowledge and skills in managing their illness and achieve personal recovery goals. Previous randomised clinical trials indicate that IMR can be implemented with a good effect and a high fidelity though further trials are crucial to demonstrate the potential effectiveness of IMR. Methods/Design The trial design is a randomised, assessor-blinded, multi-centre, clinical trial of the IMR program compared with treatment as usual for 200 participants diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder under the care of two community mental health centres in the Capital Region of Denmark. The primary outcome is level of functioning at the end of treatment. The secondary outcomes are disease symptoms; use of alcohol/drugs; individual meaning of recovery; hope; hospital admissions and out-patient psychiatric treatment at the end of treatment and the abovementioned and level of functioning at follow-up 21 months after baseline. Discussion If the results of this trial show IMR to be effective these positive results will strengthen the evidence of IMR as an effective comprehensive psychosocial intervention with a recovery-oriented approach for people with severe mental illness. This will have significant implications for the treatment and recovery of people with severe mental illness. Trial registration Registration number NCT01361698.

Despite an increasing attention towards recovery orientation in the mental health services, the provision of recovery‐oriented practice is challenged in the inpatient wards. Moreover, the existing research within this area is modest and we currently have limited knowledge of how recovery‐oriented practice is integrated into inpatient settings. A cornerstone of recovery‐oriented practice is the collaboration, patient involvement, and choices, particularly when deciding and planning treatment options. Thus, this ethnographic study aimed to explore how recovery‐oriented practice is reflected in the interactions between patients and health professionals around treatment in two mental health inpatient wards in Denmark. Participant observations were conducted in two mental health inpatient wards from November 2014 to January 2015. The Recovery Self‐Assessment scale inspired the observation guide and the initial data analysis. Field notes were analysed deductively and inductively using qualitative content analysis. One theme with four subthemes emerged showing that interactions were characterized by an 'as‐if collaboration' where 'negotiating on limited grounds' was an important feature of interactions, in which health professionals seemed to have superiority, acting on behalf of 'competing demands'. Patients had to navigate in a field of 'inconsistent guidance and postponed decisions' and faced tendencies of 'control and condescending communication'. The results suggest that recovery oriented values such as equal collaboration, choice and patients' personal preferences are reflected rhetorically in the interactions between patients and health professionals. However, they are negotiated within organizational logics and often overruled by competing demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Psychoeducational interventions for people with severe mental illness are developed to enable them to manage their illness effectively to improve prognosis and recovery. Aim: The aim was to investigate the benefits and harms of the Illness Management and Recovery (IMR) program among people with severe mental illness in Denmark. IMR builds among other approaches on a psychoeducational approach. Methods: A randomized, multi-center, clinical trial of the IMR program compared with treatment as usual among 198 participants with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder investigating outcomes related to illness self-management assessed by the IMR scale, recovery, hope and participants’ satisfaction at the end of the 9 months intervention period. Results: No statistical differences were seen between the two groups regarding illness self-management, hope, recovery, or satisfaction with treatment. Conclusions: IMR appears not to be better than treatment as usual in any of the outcomes. Further studies with a longer follow-up period, better assessments of recovery and a systematic review of the existing trials are needed to assess if the program is effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study explores the experiences of young adults with psychosis using a smartphone application to promote patient activation and support shared decision making in their outpatient treatment., Method: Semistructured interviews were conducted with eight participants who had access to the app while receiving mental health treatment. Qualitative data from the interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis aimed at experiences of interacting with the app., Results: Four themes were extracted from the interviews: supporting users with memory difficulties, giving symptoms substance, a new source of information to guide conversations, and the challenge of capturing complex experiences digitally. While the majority of the themes highlight the benefits of using the app in ways that may facilitate communication between patient and provider, the participants also described some negative experiences when interacting with the app concerning failure to communicate nuances and emotional states satisfyingly., Conclusion and Implications for Practice: Experiences with the app were double sided. On the one hand, the use of the app supports communication, and conversely, interaction with the app can create limitations and new challenges for communication. There is a need for more research to understand the use of mental health smartphone apps and their role in supporting interactive processes such as shared decision making in mental health. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

In the paradigm of recovery-oriented care in mental health the central decision model is shared decision making (SDM). In the article we describe the model of SDM and the reason why it has been identified as important in mental health care. We also review the central literature of SDM in mental health and some of the decision aids just beginning to be developed to enhance SDM, thereby pointing to the need of documenting the effect of using decision aids and to further research on the effect of SDM on the recovery process of people in mental health care.

In the paradigm of recovery-oriented care in mental health the central decision model is shared decision making (SDM). In the article we describe the model of SDM and the reason why it has been identified as important in mental health care. We also review the central literature of SDM in mental health and some of the decision aids just beginning to be developed to enhance SDM, thereby pointing to the need of documenting the effect of using decision aids and to further research on the effect of SDM on the recovery process of people in mental health care.

Systematic literature search is a fundamental in evidence-based medicine. But systematic literature search is not yet a very well used way of retrieving evidence-based information. This article profiles a systematic literature search for evidence-based literature. It goes through the most central databases and gives an example of how to document the literature search. The article also sums up the literature search in all reviews in Ugeskrift for Laeger in the year 2004.