Examined in this essay will be two articles that investigate the experiences and characteristics of absconding patients from psychiatric units. The first, by Intansari Nurjannah, Mary FitzGerald & Kim Foster, was a yearlong case study that looked into the experiences of patients who had absconded from psychiatric facilities in Indonesia. The experiences were documented through 16 semi-structured interviews, focusing on qualitative information. The second journal article, written by Eimear Muir-Cochrane, Krista Mosel, Adam Gerace, Adrian Esterman & Len Bowers, was a study of the characteristics of absconding patients from a psychiatric ward in Australia through the analysis of statistical data. In this essay, the research methods will be compared as well as examined for improvements that could have been made to further facilitate the quality of results that were found from both studies. Nurjannah et al (2009) employed qualitative research to uncover the reasons behind patients absconding from psychiatric facilities in Indonesia, with focus on the culture and health context. Their chosen method was a case study in order to isolate the issues specific to Indonesia. Within it, they chose to engage multiple methods such as interviews, observations and collections of chart audits. The interviews were mostly unplanned, with questions only being utilised to prompt memory from the participants of the absconding events. Through the collection and comparison of the data, Nurjannah et al, were able to conclude that the absconding was mostly due to distorted memories and other contextual factors that indicated the severity of the mental illness. They also concluded that there would need to be significant improvement in the education of nu... ... middle of paper ... ...ds to provide more useful results for real-world application. Works Cited Gray, R 2009. Doing Research in the Real World (second edition). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Hennik, M, Hutter, I & Bailey, A 2011. Qualitative Research Methods. London, UK: Sage. Muir-Cochrane, E, Mosel, K, Gerace, A, Esterman, A & Bowers, L 2010. ‘The profile of absconding psychiatric in-patients in Australia’, Journal of Clinical Nursing, 20, 706-713. Nurjannah, I, FitzGerald, M & Foster, A 2009, ‘Patients’ experiences of absconding from a psychiatric setting in Indonesia’, International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 18, 326-325. Yin, R 2003. Case Study Research: Design and Methods (third edition), Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Yin, R 2009. How to do Better Case Studies. In L. Bickman and B. Rog. (eds.) The Sage Handbook of Applied Social Research Methods, Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
In the book Crazy in America by Mary Beth Pfeiffer, she illustrated examples of what people with mental illness endure every day in their encounters with the criminal justice system. Shayne Eggen, Peter Nadir, Alan Houseman and Joseph Maldonado are amongst those thousands or more people who are view as suspected when in reality they are psychotic who should be receiving medical assistance instead, of been thrown into prison. Their stories also show how our society has failed to provide some of its most vulnerable citizens and has allowed them to be treated as a criminals. All of these people shared a common similarity which is their experience they went through due to their illness.
Leo, R. A. (2009, September). Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law.
Mental illness has been around as long as people have been. However, the movement really started in the 19th century during industrialization. The Western countries saw an immense increase in the number and size of insane asylums, during what was known as “the great confinement” or the “asylum era” (Torrey, Stieber, Ezekiel, Wolfe, Sharfstein, Noble, Flynn Criminalizing the Seriously Mentally Ill). Laws were starting to be made to pressure authorities to face the people who were deemed insane by family members and hospital administrators. Because of the overpopulation in the institutions, treatment became more impersonal and had a complex mix of mental and social-economic problems. During this time the term “psychiatry” was identified as the medical specialty for the people who had the job as asylum superintendents. These superintendents assumed managerial roles in asylums for people who were considered “alienated” from society; people with less serious conditions wer...
...are Program For Inmates With A Chronic Mental Illness.” Jour of Forensic Psychology Proctice 4.2. (2004): 87-100. Academic Search Complete. Web 5 May 2014
Thousands of people statewide are in prisons, all for different reasons. However, the amount of mental illness within prisons seems to go unaddressed and ignored throughout the country. This is a serious problem, and the therapy/rehabilitation that prison systems have do not always help those who are mentally ill. Prison involvement itself can contribute to increased suicide (Hills, Holly). One ‘therapy’ that has increased throughout the years has been the use of solitary confinement, which has many negative effects on the inmates.
Lamb, H. R. (2004). Mentally ill persons in the criminal justice system: Some perspectives. Psychiatric Quarterly, 108-126.
Richardson, E. & McSherry, B., 2010, ‘Diversion down under – Programs for offenders with mental illnesses in Australia’, International Journal of Law Psychiatry, vol. 33, no. 4, pp. 249-257.
The purpose of this case study is to investigate and bring new insight to situations and behaviors within an organization. Case studies are learning tools which utilize social science research to identify and resolve individual and organizational challenges (K. Mariama-Arthur Esq., 2015).
An estimated 650,000 offenders are released from prisons each year. Most generally leave with only a few dollars, some clothes, and possibly a bus ticket. Release practices like this are common and can be especially disastrous for mentally ill inmates. If immediately released without access to health care, the mentally ill will suffer from interruption of continuity of care. In prison, they may have been receiving medication, therapy, or other forms of treatment. Interruption of care could lead to excelled deterioration in their mental health. This tends to lead to a higher rate of recidivism among mentally-ill former prisoners. (Hummert, 2011.).
Does one really know the definition of psychological instability? Perhaps it has an existence at the mental institutional treatment sanitarium here in southern California. The patient of evaluation, Holden Caulfield, a seventeen year old Caucasian male, weighs approximately 120lbs with a skinny, lanky stature and is 6 feet and 2.5 inches tall. Caulfield has crew-cut hair that is graying on the right side. The patient was an occasional drinker and smoker but has now cut cold turkey due to being institutionalized. Frequently drastic mood swings have been documented, as well as, emotional breakdowns, evident sexual frustration, deep depression, clear resentment, a rebellious attitude, signs of being socially inept and abnormal immaturity for a boy of his age. Based on professional observation, it is obvious that the patient exhibits some bipolar and multiple personality characteristics; his obsession with finding the flaws in the people and world around him has contributed to putting him in a dangerously depressive state.
Mental disorders and Criminal Behavior is a chapter that talks about people who live with different medical conditions, and how those mentally
World Health Organization (2007) Preventing Suicide in Jails and Prisons: WHO Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data. Geneva, Switzerland
However, the refugee population is heterogeneous as they originate from different parts of the world, hence requiring individualised care. Considering the psychological aspect, it is very important to differentiate between client’s traditional beliefs about spirit possession or sorcery and actual psychiatric symptoms. Due to cultural beliefs, these can be misunderstood as psychiatric symptoms and wrongly diagnosed as one of mental health disorders (Nyagua & Harris 2008). Here the cultural safety model can be used to understand and identify the differences of African and Australian
Maureen O’Keefe, a researcher from the Colorado Department of Corrections, discovered that in Colorado alone 35% of the prisoners in isolation had a serious mental illness before being placed in isolation (Weir, 2012). Instead of providing medical treatment for these people they are placed in solitary confinement, where they are locked in a cell for 23 hours a day and so they’re not given reasonable medical treatment for their conditions. The number of people with mental illnesses being placed in isolation in the US is such a level where it is becoming the mental health system rather than the correctional system. This is supported by the fact that U.S prisons hold more than three times as more prisoners with mental illnesses than mental health institutions in the U.S (Human Rights Watch, 2009).
Donald R.Cooper : Florida Atlantic University, Pamela S.Schindler : Wittenberg University, (2011), 11th Edition of Business Research Methods, text book, The Management Question :112, The Research Question :116)