Nick Glozier writes: The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-5) has copped the predicted criticisms since its release on the weekend. Most centre on the idea thatmore of us will be diagnosed with mental disorders, as the diagnostic thresholds are lowered. Critics have also argued these thresholds will lead to [...]

The poor physical health of people with mental illness has been known about for decades – one of the first studies in this area was published as far back as 1934 (see reference 1 at the bottom of this article). A National Summit on Mental Health and Physical Health will be held in Sydney tomorrow with [...]

Jayashri Kulkarni: Women admitted to psychiatry wards experience high levels of violence and sexual assaults, according to a report released this week by the Victorian Mental Illness Alliance Council. Across the nine different psychiatry hospital wards surveyed in Victoria, 85% of female inpatients felt unsafe during hospitalisation, 67% reported experiencing sexual or other forms of harassment [...]

Olav Nielssen writes:  Just when we thought we were heading for a more tolerant and accepting attitude toward people afflicted by mental illness, a feature and a news article in Saturday’s The Australian quoting leaders in the area of forensic psychiatry have revived the old mental-illness-equals-axe-murderer stigma. One of the articles was based on a recent paper published in the journal Acta Psychiatrica [...]

With strong public support for public insurance schemes such as Medicare and the NDIS, Sebastian Rosenberg proposes a similar insurance system for mental health called MindCare… The decision to now support a Medicare-style levy to pay for the new National Disability Insurance Scheme is partly fired by the difficult budget situation. However it is also [...]

In Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ cultures, social and emotional wellbeing are considered pivotal to a community’s survival and growth as well as an individuals’ sense of wellbeing. But our modern world has lost this understanding. International mental health adviser, Gregor Henderson asks if Australia can help shift us back to the future. There [...]

Healthcare organisations in the United States are being provided with tools for addressing health inequalities via the Roadmap to Reduce Disparities. The roadmap is part of an initiative, launched by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 2005, called Finding Answers: Disparities Research for Change.  As previously reported at Croakey, the roadmap recommends taking a structured [...]