Systematic reviews about occupational therapy in mental health

To support RCOMH’s work to identify research priorities for the Health Technology Assessment programme we identified the extent to which systematic reviews have been completed in the area of mental health and occupational therapy.

Hannah Spring explains what we found out.

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Critical review of outcome measures for use in forensic mental health studies

This review has just been published by the Health Technology Assessment programme in the UK. The researchers identified that the outcome measure of repeat offending behaviour was by far the most frequently used outcome measure. The research team readily acknowledge that this does not reflect the breadth of outcomes people in forensic mental health settings are interested in. However, as Dr Lou Farnworth (a co-lead on RCOMH’s Occupation and mental health in forensic and prison services research programme) noted the document only includes an oblique reference to occupation, in terms of work, but not a wider understanding of occupational performance. However, this presents an opportunity to develop occupation focussed outcome measures whilst the field is still in a state of flux.

Available at: http://www.hta.ac.uk/project/1583.asp?src=alr

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Third annual conference of the Counselling in Prisons Network

The Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at York St John is holding its 3rd Annual conference of the Counselling in Prisons Network. This conference will see the launch of the 5-year strategy "Promoting Excellence in Therapy in Prisons".

Venue: York St John University
Date: 10 June 2010

http://w3.yorksj.ac.uk/health/faculty-of-hls/partnerships-and-projects/counselling-in-pri.aspx

Spotlight on Research

In this month’s spotlight on research Dr Katrina Bannigan critically reflects on a research paper about acceptability and outcomes associated with The Tree Theme method (Never heard of it? Neither had I!) when used as an intervention in psychosocial occupational therapy.

  Read her reflection

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