Mental Health Care: Call to Action

In the summer of 1979, a group of experts on law, medicine, and ethics assembled in Siracusa, Sicily, under the auspices of the International Commission of Jurists and the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Science, to draft guidelines on the rights of persons with mental illness. Sitting across the table from me was a quiet, proud man of distinctive intelligence, William J. Curran, Frances Glessner Lee Professor of Legal Medicine at Harvard University. Professor Curran was one of the principal drafters of those guidelines. Many years later in 1991, after several subsequent re-drafts by United Nations (U.N.) Rapporteur Erica-Irene Daes, the text was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly as the Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness and for the Improvement of Mental Health Care. This was the kind of remarkable achievement in the field of law and medicine that Professor Curran repeated throughout his distinguished career.

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Pediatricians' Mental Health Care Role Suggested

Pediatric News ◽

10.1016/s0031-398x(08)70425-9 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 42 (9) ◽

pp. 18

Author(s):

DOUG BRUNK

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Health Care ◽

Mental Health Care

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Primary Care Collaboration on Mental Health Care Urged

Internal Medicine News ◽

10.1016/s1097-8690(05)72319-2 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 38 (21) ◽

pp. 90

Author(s):

MARY ELLEN SCHNEIDER

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Primary Care ◽

Health Care ◽

Mental Health Care

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Handbook of Person-Centered Mental Health Care

10.1027/00568-000 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Nosheen Akhtar ◽

Cheryl Forchuk ◽

Katherine McKay ◽

Sandra Fisman ◽

Abraham Rudnick

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Health Care ◽

Mental Health Care

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Psychometric Properties of the German Version of the Scale to Assess the Therapeutic Relationship in Community Mental Health Care (D-STAR)

European Journal of Psychological Assessment ◽

10.1027/1015-5759/a000105 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 28 (4) ◽

pp. 255-261 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Sabine Loos ◽

Reinhold Kilian ◽

Thomas Becker ◽

Birgit Janssen ◽

Harald Freyberger ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Health Care ◽

Community Mental Health ◽

Mental Health Care ◽

Psychometric Properties ◽

Therapeutic Relationship ◽

Internal Consistency ◽

Convergent Validity ◽

Community Mental Health Care ◽

German Version

Objective: There are presently no instruments available in German language to assess the therapeutic relationship in psychiatric care. This study validates the German version of the Scale to Assess the Therapeutic Relationship in Community Mental Health Care (D-STAR). Method: 460 persons with severe mental illness and 154 clinicians who had participated in a multicenter RCT testing a discharge planning intervention completed the D-STAR. Psychometric properties were established via item analysis, analyses of missing values, internal consistency, and confirmatory factor analysis. Furthermore, convergent validity was scrutinized via calculating correlations of the D-STAR scales with two measures of treatment satisfaction. Results: As in the original English version, fit indices of a 3-factor model of the therapeutic relationship were only moderate. However, the feasibility and internal consistency of the D-STAR was good, and correlations with other measures suggested reasonable convergent validity. Conclusions: The psychometric properties of the D-STAR are acceptable. Its use can be recommended in German-speaking countries to assess the therapeutic relationship in both routine care and research.

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