Study of coercive measures in prisons and secure psychiatric hospitals: the views of inmates and caregivers.

AIM: The aim of the study was to ascertain the opinions of both inmates and staff of prison establishments about the use of coercive measures justified for clinical reasons for people with mental health problems and about the need to create protocols to regulate the application of these measures. METHOD: These opinions were gathered in a Qualitative Study with Focus Groups (prison inmates and prison staff) from the Granada Penitentiary Centre and the Alicante Penitentiary Psychiatric Hospital, both in Spain. RESULTS: The results showed that forced medication is the most commonly used coercive measure in these institutions. The inmates did not understand and rejected the use of this measure, above all because they were poorly informed about their illness and the medication required to treat it. The staff however defended the benefits of psychiatric medicine, even when administered without the patient's consent. CONCLUSIONS: Both inmates and staff agreed that it would be useful to have a protocol regulating the use of coercive measures. The study has also identified a number of important factors that could help to reduce the need for coercive measures or make their use unnecessary.

Estudio de las medidas coercitivas en centros penitenciarios y hospitales psiquiátricos penitenciarios: opiniones de internos y profesionales / Study of coercive measures in prisons and secure psychiatric hospitals: the views of inmates and caregivers

Objetivos: El estudio ha pretendido conocer por un lado la opinión de personas internas en establecimientos penitenciarios, y por otro lado, la opinión de los funcionarios de estas instituciones sobre el uso de medidas coercitivas por indicación clínica en personas con problemas de salud mental y sobre la necesidad de creación de protocolos de actuación para la aplicación de estas medidas. Metodología: Estudio cualitativo que ha utilizado la técnica de Grupos Focales llevados a cabo con internos y funcionarios del Centro Penitenciario de Granada y del Hospital Psiquiátrico Penitenciario de Alicante, España. Resultados: Los resultados demuestran que la medida coercitiva más utilizada en estas instituciones es la medicación forzosa. Las personas internas no comprenden y rechazan la utilización de esta medida, sobre todo porque están mal informadas sobre su enfermedad y su tratamiento farmacológico, pero los profesionales abogan por los beneficios de la medicación psiquiátrica, aunque sea de forma involuntaria. Conclusiones: Tanto usuarios como profesionales están de acuerdo con la utilidad de la existencia de un protocolo de actuación para la aplicación de medidas coercitivas. Este estudio ha hallado importantes factores que podrían ayudar a disminuir la utilización de medidas coercitivas o incluso evitarlas (AU)

Aim: The aim of the study was to ascertain the opinions of both inmates and staff of prison establishments about the use of coercive measures justified for clinical reasons for people with mental health problems and about the need to create protocols to regulate the application of these measures. Method: These opinions were gathered in a Qualitative Study with Focus Groups (prison inmates and prison staff) from the Granada Penitentiary Centre and the Alicante Penitentiary Psychiatric Hospital, both in Spain. Results: The results showed that forced medication is the most commonly used coercive measure in these institutions. The inmates did not understand and rejected the use of this measure, above all because they were poorly informed about their illness and the medication required to treat it. The staff however defended the benefits of psychiatric medicine, even when administered without the patient's consent. Conclusions: Both inmates and staff agreed that it would be useful to have a protocol regulating the use of coercive measures. The study has also identified a number of important factors that could help to reduce the need for coercive measures or make their use unnecessary (AU)

Standardization of the Maristán Scale of Informal Care in people with schizophrenia and other psychoses.

OBJECTIVE: No instrument has been developed and validated across cultures to measure the degree of support provided by informal carers to people with schizophrenia. We aimed to develop such a measure. METHOD: The Maristán Scale of Informal Care was developed directly from the views of patients with schizophrenia in six countries. Face-to-face interviews were carried out with participants and 103 were repeated after 30 days. Principal Axis Factoring followed by Promax rotation evaluated the structure of the scale. Horn's parallel combined with bootstrapping determined the number of factors. Cronbach's alpha estimated the scale's internal consistency and intra-class correlation its test-retest reliability. RESULTS: A total of 164 interviews were undertaken, 103 with re-test. The Horn's Parallel Analysis and the analysis of the Promax rotation revealed one factor. Cronbach's alpha was 0.89. Intra-class correlation coefficient was 0.56 (95% CI 0.42-0.68) and this increased to 0.64 (95% CI 0.51-0.75) after removing two outlying values. Patients from Argentina recorded the lowest scores (poor informal support/care). CONCLUSION: The Maristán Scale of Informal Care is a reliable instrument to assess the degree of support provided by informal carers to people with schizophrenia across cultures. A confirmatory factor analysis is needed to evaluate the stability of its factor structure.