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Studies from H. Jormfeldt and co-researchers update current data on mental health
April 14th, 2008
2008 APR 14 -- "Mental health services have been lacking systematic health-promoting activities, and health is often perceived as the absence of disease from a biomedical perspective. It is vital to develop methods to assess perceived health among patients in a broader perspective," scientists in Halmstad, Sweden report. "The aim of the study was to investigate construct validity of a newly developed health questionnaire intended to measure subjectively experienced health among patients in mental health services. A cross-sectional study, including a randomly selected sample of 139 outpatients in contact with the mental health services, was performed in order to explore the relationship between perceived health and self-reported levels of self-esteem, symptoms, empowerment, quality of life and experiences of stigmatization. Self-esteem, symptoms, empowerment and quality of life altogether accounted for 70% of the variation in overall perceived health. Overall perceived health showed positive associations to self-esteem, empowerment and quality of life and negative associations to psychiatric symptoms, discrimination and rejection experiences," wrote H. Jormfeldt and colleagues. The researchers concluded: "The findings suggest that perceived health as measured by the health questionnaire can be a meaningful and valid construct that may be useful for measuring health in clinical mental healthcare practice and in mental health services research." Jormfeldt and colleagues published their study in the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing (Construct validity of a health questionnaire intended to measure the subjective experience of health among patients in mental health services. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 2008;15(3):238-245). For additional information, contact H. Jormfeldt, Psychiatry Rehabilitation Unit, Magnus Stenbocksvag 50, SE-30234 Halmstad, Sweden. The publisher's contact information for the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing is: Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Rd., Oxford OX4 2ZG, Oxon, England. Keywords: Sweden, Halmstad, Bioengineering, Biomedical Engineering, Biomedicine, Mental Health, Psychiatric, Psychiatry. This article was prepared by Biotech Business Week editors from staff and other reports. Copyright 2008, Biotech Business Week via NewsRx.com.
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