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Correctional services are plagued by poor staff retention, shortages, and high rates of turnover, which represent costly challenges for recruitment, training, and administration. Central to addressing challenges of correctional officer retention and staffing shortages is insight into what motivates individuals to pursue a career in correctional services. Although researchers have looked at the motivations of correctional officers entering the Canadian provincial system, researchers have yet to study the motivations of individuals' entering the field of correctional services in the Canadian federal correctional system. In the current exploratory study, we apply Herzberg's theory to investigate federal correctional officer recruits' intrinsic and extrinsic motivations toward becoming correctional officers with the Correctional Service of Canada. By drawing on the voices of recruits (N = 70) interviewed prior to the start of their employment, we thematically examined their rationales for seeking employment as federal correctional officers, their career aspirations, and their expectations about the correctional officer job. Our examination identified three overarching themes: the first tied more purely to extrinsic motivations, the second purely intrinsic, and the third more closely resembled a "drifting" phenomenon. We discuss the results in the context of officer recruitment and retention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and objections: We aimed to explore the content and language of nursing documentation and gain insight into the internal processes of nurses while notetaking. Background: Documentation is a core competency of mental health nursing, has clinical and ethical importance and is the integral to the efficient and effective care provided to patients. However, issues related to the content and quality of nursing notes continues to be a concern and there remains gaps in our understanding about the internal processes that nurses engage in when writing notes. Design: We used a mixed method design that included a content analysis with note review and interviews. Methods: After watching a video, psychiatric nurses (n = 27) wrote a note and then were interviewed about their note taking process. We used the COREQ guidelines for reporting our data. Results: Participants relied on four main themes when determining what to include in their notes—what happened and what the patient said or did, plus anything different than baseline, and safety concerns. Analyses revealed the presence of bias in the notetaking and participants were not familiar with effective strategies to mitigate these during the documentation process. Lastly, we found that notes are typically consistent in using some of the SOAPE format with notes focused on direct observations and the use of 'facts', while assessment and construction of treatment plans are used to a lesser extent. Conclusions: Our results provide insight into the decision‐making process of nursing staff regarding their documentation practices: overall they appear unaware of the importance of their notes, and believe that capturing the facts about their patients is important, while devaluing their own input and interpretations. Relevance to clinical practice: Our results provide evidence that mental health nurses may need additional training regarding documentation, more specifically about what to include, word choice and bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Restorative justice has long been considered an important alternative lens to approach illegal and harmful behavior compared to traditional criminal justice approaches. Despite this widespread and successful application, efforts to use this approach within forensic mental health settings have seemingly been minimal. This review aimed to synthesize the available information on the application, evidence for use, and barriers or unique considerations for restorative justice practices within forensic mental health settings. The PRISMA extension for scoping reviews checklist guided our reporting of the results. After conducting an extensive review of the literature, six peer-reviewed articles and five gray literature documents were included. Our results demonstrate that restorative justice approaches in forensic mental health settings are being used by a small number of committed individuals and are not broadly accepted or part of typical care services. The evidence for use of this approach is extremely sparse but do suggest that these interventions could be appropriate in forensic mental health settings as reports for positive impacts are available on three levels, with patients, victims, and organizations. Information about the unique considerations that should be made and how restorative justice in forensic mental health differs from use in other populations is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research suggested that educational engagement may enhance posttraumatic and post-migration adjustment and contribute to overall wellbeing among war-zone immigrants (Stermac et al., 2008). This study examined this further and compared the educational experiences and the health outcomes of immigrant students and non-students who had resided in global war-zones or within areas of extreme civil unrest prior to emigration. Participants in the study (N = 45) were recent immigrants to Toronto, Canada from global war-zone regions in which they had experienced prolonged exposure to traumatic events and who reported many psychological symptoms in the pre-migration environment. Structured interviews and standardized questionnaires were used to obtain information about exposure to stressful events, educational experiences, psychological health and current functioning. Results indicated that while the majority of participants reported good mental health and life satisfaction, students' self reports of current functioning both in terms of coping with symptoms and in assessments of well-being provided some evidence that students were able to make positive adjustments within their post-migration environments that may be beyond those made by non-students. The results suggest that those engaged in educational programs have good coping abilities for dealing with trauma and posttraumatic symptoms. Results are discussed in terms of the role of educational and community-based interventions in coping with stress-related psychological sequelae and mental health among war-zone immigrants in Toronto. (Contains 3 tables.)

Accessible Summary: What is known about the subject?: In a survey conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) in the summer of 2020, 93% of countries worldwide acknowledged negative impacts on their mental health services.Previous research during the H1N1 pandemic in 2009 established an increase of patient aggression in psychiatric facilities. What the paper adds to existing knowledge?: Despite expected worsening of mental health, our hospital observed reductions in aggressive behaviour among inpatients and subsequent use of coercive interventions by staff in the months following Covid‐19 pandemic restrictions being implemented.The downward trend in incidents observed during the pandemic has suggested that aggression in mental health hospitals may be more situation‐specific and less so a factor of mental illness. What are the implications for practice?: We believe that the reduction in aggressive behaviour observed during the pandemic is related to changes in our organization that occurred in response to concerns about patient well‐being; our co‐design approach shifted trust, choice and power. Therefore, practices that support these constructs are needed to maintain the outcomes we experienced.Rather than return to normal in the wake of the pandemic, we are strongly encouraged to sustain the changes we made and continue to find better ways to support and work with the individuals who rely on or use our services. The global COVID‐19 pandemic has dramatically changed the operation of health care such that many services were put on hold as patients were triaged differently, people delayed seeking care, and transition to virtual care was enacted, including in psychiatric facilities. Most of the media dialogue has been negative; however, there have been some silver linings observed. Coinciding with the pandemic has been a reduction in aggressive incidents at our psychiatric hospital, along with the decreased need to use restraints and seclusion to manage behaviour. In this paper, we are taking stock of the changes that have occurred in response to the pandemic in an attempt to share our learnings and offer suggestions so that health care does not necessarily return to "normal". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Indexes of brain [serotonin.sub.2A] ([5-HT.sub.2A]) density have never been investigated in a sample of humans with violent aggressive behaviour unbiased by medication use or current axis I psychiatric disorders. [...]

Mental disorders are prevalent among public safety personnel (PSP) yet many people working across public safety professions appear reluctant to seek care for mental health-related concerns. Given the prevalence and impact of compromised mental health on these populations, finding ways to increase use of psychological support for police staff and officers is necessary. We conducted an interview and focus groups (n= 9) with police service members (n= 33) to examine the barriers police officers (n= 25) and communicators (n= 8) report facing when seeking treatment, and their suggestions for improving access to treatment. We identified three main barriers: stigma, worries about confidentiality, and occupation-specific experience with people in the community who present in mental distress. Three suggestions emerged from our participants that may improve current mental health support, namely, ensuring confidentiality, easy-to-use electronic resources, and access to occupation-specific content. We discuss the implications of our results with suggestions for policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pro re nata ( PRN), a Latin phrase meaning 'as needed', is used to describe medications that might be used in specific situations, in addition to regularly-scheduled medications, such as when a patient is particularly anxious, experiencing insomnia, or suffering pain. While helpful in some circumstances, PRN are associated with an increased risk of morbidity, overuse, dependence, and polypharmacy. There is also a dearth of medical literature describing current practices and trends of PRN administration in mental health facilities, especially in Canada, and the literature that does exist is limited by poor documentation practices. Therefore, the primary objective of the current study was to understand the reason (purpose), frequency, use, documentation practices, and outcome (i.e. effectiveness, side-effects) of PRN medication use on inpatient units. Data were pulled to capture a snapshot of PRN administrations over a 3-month period, and included information related to the administration of the PRN medication, such as time of administration, type and dose of PRN medication, and prescribed indication, as well as patient-specific information. Results indicated that approximately 8200 psychotropic PRN medications were administered during the designated 3-month time period, and over 90% of patients received at least one PRN. Most of these were benzodiazepines, followed by antipsychotics. Further analyses were conducted to determine other characteristics of PRN use patterns and to provide a baseline of understanding that will inform future research to investigate the practice of PRN administration to psychiatric inpatients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]