research

On our recent threads about careers in psychology versus careers in mental health nursing, it’s been suggested that nursing research is a pile of clinically-irrelevant wibble. In order to consider this hypothesis, we now bring back our resident academic, Professor Humphrey G Escobar, chair of anthropology at Miskatonic University, occultist, bon viveur, author of our occasional series Anthropologists on the Psych Ward and of the religious pamphlet, How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love Cthulhu.

Professor Escobar provides the following research paper in response.

Nursing Research - A Load of Old Wibble? A Qualitative Analysis by H G Escobar PhD (Misk.), MSc (R’lyeh), B.Demonology (Arkham)

ABSTRACT: Nursing research has at times been dismissed as “wibble”. This paper examines a sample issue of the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing and measures the wibble content on a series of assessment scales. Read the rest of this entry »

Surfing the net; an interesting article on yet another theory on the aetiology of mental disorder.

This one suggests that the culprit may be nothing more than the common ‘flu’.

Doctors have known for many years that microbes such as syphilis and Streptococcus can, if left untreated, lead to serious psychiatric problems. Now a growing number of scientists are proposing that microbes are to blame for several mental illnesses once thought to have neurological or psychological defects at their roots. The strongest evidence pertains to schizophrenia, but autism, bipolar disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder have also been linked to bacterial, viral or parasitic infections in utero, in childhood or in maturity. Some of these infections can directly affect the brain, whereas others might trigger immune reactions that interfere with brain development or perhaps even attack our own brain cells in an autoimmune mistake.

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In healthcare and government leadership, responsibility and direction has more or less been driven by the need for a healthier nation. For the larger part this means ensuring living for a long time.

So it is somewhat shocking and revealing to find this article that provides a new and significant departure from what might be considered traditional medicine.

In this article it is clearly stated:

People who have more birthdays live longer

What implications is this astonishing fact going to have on healthcare for now and the future?

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The findings of a study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry (December 2003) suggest higher incidences of illegal drug usage, alcoholism, psychological problems, and violence in the gay community than in the general population.

“Gay men and lesbians reported more psychological distress than heterosexual women, despite similar levels of social support and quality of physical health,”

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