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The concept of schizophrenia has been contested since its inception. Over the last decades, criticism of the concept has become increasingly mainstream and calls for its abandonment have intensified. Nevertheless, the concept remains widely used and retains taken-for-granted status within much mental health research and practice. The combination of its contested status and continued use raises questions about how it is used and with what implications for people who receive the diagnosis. This study explores how 'schizophrenia' is spoken about by mental health professionals who use the diagnosis in day-to-day practice. Eight interviews with professionals across professions were analysed using Foucauldian Discourse Analysis. Two striking and consistent themes were identified. The first is a discrepancy between the way participants talked about 'schizophrenia' to the interviewer, and the way they described talking about it in clinical encounters. The second is the potentially entrapping impact of the wider discourses participants drew on in talk about clinical encounters. The study concludes with reflections on how those working in the mental health field can break out of this discursive entrapment, and help the people they work with do the same. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the high death toll of the COVID-19 pandemic, reported rates of adherence to adaptive preventive health behaviours during the early wave of the pandemic were suboptimal for reducing the risk of disease spread. Additionally, some have adopted practices with the intention of preventing infection that have harmful consequences. Protection Motivation Theory (PMT), consisting of perceived vulnerability, severity, response efficacy, and self-efficacy, has been used to predict intentions to engage in behaviours in past pandemics, and can be extended to the COVID-19 outbreak. Three hundred and thirty-three American adults completed a survey in May 2020 through Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Ten behaviours recommended by the CDC and WHO and two 'maladaptive' behaviours presented in the media were selected for investigation. Binary logistic regressions were conducted to assess the impacts of demographic variables and PMT constructs on behaviour frequency. Perceived severity and vulnerability were not significant predictors of behaviour frequency. Behaviour specific response efficacy and self-efficacy were significant predictors of 11/12 (odds ratios: 2.70–6.22) and 10/12 (odds ratios: 2.59–4.64) behaviours, respectively. Age, gender, education, political ideology, perceived severity, and perceived vulnerability were generally unimportant predictors. Beliefs about the effectiveness of the behaviour and one's ability to carry out that behaviour consistently seem to be more important in predicting how often someone engages in that behaviour than the perceived dangerousness of COVID-19 and one's believed susceptibility to infection. These results suggest that interventions trying to modulate the likelihood of engaging in preventive behaviours should focus on the effectiveness of these behaviours in reducing risk of spread and the individual's ability to engage in these behaviours frequently rather than the dangerousness of the COVID-19 pandemic and the individual's risk of becoming infected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate the sustainability of Robot-assisted upper limb therapy (RT-UL) as part of routine occupational therapy and physiotherapy clinical practice. Two separate audits, 12 months apart, of RT-UL computer data records were undertaken to determine sustainability in a subacute rehabilitation unit. Records of the two audits were compared in terms of the number of early subacute stroke survivors using RT-UL, the number of RT-UL sessions, duration of RT-UL sessions, and disciplines prescribing RT-UL. During Audit 1 58% (n = 18) of stroke survivors received RT-UL compared to 50% (n = 7) in Audit 2. The total number of RT-UL sessions reduced between audits (148 vs. 36 sessions) reflecting the overall reduction in admission rates for stroke survivors. There was no significant difference between audits in the average number of RT-UL sessions per patient (p = 0.203) nor the length of sessions (p = 0.762). Patients engaged in active therapy more than three-quarters of the time when on the robotic device. Physiotherapists were the primary prescribers of RT-UL when compared to occupational therapists. RT-UL was in continued and regular use with stroke survivors 2 years after initial implementation within an inpatient rehabilitation setting. RT-UL practice was intensive and used routinely with patients. RT-UL is a sustainable and intensive intervention for stroke survivors within an inpatient rehabilitative setting. The cost-benefits of RT-UL should be evaluated from the perspective of the whole rehabilitation service not just at an individual patient level. RT-UL may be considered a "bridging" form of UL practice for those with more limited active UL movement until there is sufficient UL movement and power for more complex real-world task-specific practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robot assisted upper limb (UL) therapy has been identified as an intervention with the potential to help improve the amount of practice performed by stroke survivors. This study aimed to measure the amount of UL practice (i.e., repetitions, duration, intensity) performed by subacute stroke survivors, in particular those with severe UL impairment, pre and post implementation of robot assisted upper limb therapy (RT-UL) into an inpatient rehabilitation setting. Two observational study phases (pre-RT-UL and post-RT-UL) were undertaken of occupational therapy and physiotherapy sessions performed by subacute stroke survivors. Upper limb tasks observed and recorded in therapy were classified as either impairment-related therapy or activity-related. In the pre-RT-UL observational phase, 7 subacute stroke survivors were observed across 11 days involving 25 therapy sessions. Post-RT-UL, 12 subacute stroke survivors were observed across 12 days involving 29 therapy sessions. There were no significant differences in characteristics of patients observed in each phase (p >.05). The mean difference (95% CI) between pre and post RT-UL for repetitions (reps) (569 (1 to 1136) and intensity (7 (4–11)) reps/min of practice increased for all patients, including those with severe UL impairment (337 (37–638)) reps and 8 (2–14) reps/minute, with the duration of therapy unchanged. This is the first study to have observed an increase in UL practice with the inclusion of RT-UL as part of routine clinical practice. This increase in practice is considered to be due to RT-UL providing highly supportive and expeditious semi-supervised practice. Notably, RT-UL was able to be implemented within the existing organisational structures with only basic training of therapy staff. Robotics presents as a viable intervention to increase the amount and intensity of upper limb practice performed by stroke survivors in routine clinical practice Robotics were able to be implemented within the existing organisational structures with only basic training of therapy staff [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]