How service users and carers understand, perceive, rephrase, and communicate about "depressive episode" and "schizophrenia" diagnoses: an international participatory research.

BACKGROUND: For ICD-11, the WHO emphasized the clinical utility of communication and the need to involve service users and carers in the revision process. AIMS: The objective was to assess whether medical vocabulary was accessible, which kinds of feelings it activated, whether and how users and carers would like to rephrase terms, and whether they used diagnosis to talk about mental health experiences. METHOD: An innovative protocol focused on two diagnoses (depressive episode and schizophrenia) was implemented in 15 different countries. The same issues were discussed with users and carers: understanding, feelings, rephrasing, and communication. RESULTS: Most participants reported understanding the diagnoses, but associated them with negative feelings. While the negativity of "depressive episode" mostly came from the concept itself, that of "schizophrenia" was largely based on its social impact and stigmatization associated with "mental illness". When rephrasing "depressive episode", a majority kept the root "depress*", and suppressed the temporal dimension or renamed it. Almost no one suggested a reformulation based on "schizophrenia". Finally, when communicating, no one used the phrase "depressive episode". Some participants used words based on "depress", but no one mentioned "episode". Very few used "schizophrenia". CONCLUSION: Data revealed a gap between concepts and emotional and cognitive experiences. Both professional and experiential language and knowledge have to be considered as complementary. Consequently, the ICD should be co-constructed by professionals, service users, and carers. It should take the emotional component of language, and the diversity of linguistic and cultural contexts, into account.

Clinical Psychology in Lithuania: Current Developments in Training and Legislation.

This paper presents an overview of the current status in training and legislation of clinical psychology in Lithuania. Clinical psychology training at the university level in Lithuania started soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s and was influenced by the social context and historical-political situation in the country. Currently, legislation for clinical psychology in Lithuania is in progress, and several promising regulations for psychology in health care were introduced in the last decade. However, psychologists, including clinical psychologists, are not licensed in Lithuania. The lack of legislation for psychology is the main obstacle for the recognition and establishment of clinical psychology in the country. In health care, the title 'clinical psychologist' is not common; 'medical psychologist' is the title used instead to refer to both clinical psychologists and health psychologists. We conclude that while the development of clinical psychology in Lithuania is promising, there is still a long way to go to establish clinical psychology as an important profession in Lithuania.