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Educating healthcare professionals to act on the physical health needs of people with serious mental illness: a systematic search for evidence
Author(s) -
HARDY S.,
WHITE J.,
DEANE K.,
GRAY R.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of psychiatric and mental health nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.69
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1365-2850
pISSN - 1351-0126
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2850.2011.01722.x
Subject(s) - mental health , health care , mental illness , psychological intervention , medicine , nursing , inclusion (mineral) , population , intervention (counseling) , evidence based practice , medline , health professionals , psychology , psychiatry , alternative medicine , social psychology , environmental health , economics , economic growth , pathology , political science , law
Accessible summary• All healthcare professionals caring for people with serious mental illness should be aware of the signs of physical problems and take action to help patients improve their health. • Our objective is to develop education for healthcare professionals caring for people with serious mental illness to enable them all to offer better physical care. • We performed a systematic search of the literature and found no papers reporting the outcomes of education with regard to healthcare professionals' knowledge, attitudes and behaviours. The only information reported was the effect of the action taken on patients. • It is vital that researchers start to publish details of healthcare professional education and their outcomes in physical health research in serious mental illness.Abstract Healthcare professionals in primary and secondary care should monitor the physical health of people with serious mental illness, yet in practice this does not appear to be a routine intervention. Our objective is to develop evidence‐based training for healthcare professionals to enable them all to offer better physical care to this population. We performed a systematic search with the aim of evaluating the current evidence of the efficacy of education interventions. Search terms covered Severe Mental Illness, Physical Health and Education. The search yielded 147 papers, of which none were eligible for inclusion. A number of studies were excluded from this review as although there was an implicit education package provided to healthcare professionals, no information was reported on the outcomes of this education with regard to healthcare professionals' knowledge, attitudes and behaviours. The only information that these studies provided was patient‐specific outcomes. It is vital that researchers start to publish details of healthcare professional education and their outcomes in physical health and serious mental illness research.