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Biomedical subjects

N Kessel

Publications and source records attributed to N Kessel.

9 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1987

Effect of the 1983 Mental Health Act on the management of psychiatric patients.

Two principal objectives of the 1983 Mental Health Act were to decrease the use of emergency orders and to give patients on observation orders the right of appeal. Statistics were collected from the 13 hospitals that admit acute psychiatric patients in the Greater Manchester area, and the figures for 1980-1 were compared with those for 1984-5. Changes in use of the different sections were examined in university units, large psychiatric hospitals, and district general hospital units. The use of emergency orders decreased and the use of treatment orders increased; the use of observation orders remained unchanged. Many more patients exercised their right of appeal in 1984-5, but the number discharged by tribunals remained small. The nurses' holding power was used infrequently. The different types of hospital are now more concordant in their use of these orders than before the 1983 act.

Commitment of Persons with Psychiatric Disorders↗
PubMed1986

Alcoholism and the general practitioner.

Fifty-three urban general practitioners were questioned about alcoholism. They mostly had reasonably good, if sometimes muddled knowledge of the condition, when to suspect it, and how to confirm its presence. Social harms were seen as predominant over somatic ones. The majority had had postgraduate instruction supplemented by reading. Most were prepared to treat alcoholics, and revealed tolerant and sympathetic attitudes towards them and their families. The survey negates the general impression of unwillingness by general practitioners to engage with alcoholism.

Alcoholism↗
PubMed1979

Reassurance.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Physician-Patient Relations↗
PubMed1975

The comparability of suicide rates.

Programmes of suicide prevention require for their planning accurate epidemiological surveys. Doubt has been cast on the accuracy of many existing surveys because of the realization that suicide is under-reported and because of the lack of consistency in the procedure for suicide ascertainment. Two studies are described in this paper which attempt to examine the problem. The first is part of an international study supported by the World Health Organization. In it, Denmark and England are compared, and it is shown that there are striking differences in suicide ascertainment procedure between the two countries. Next, on a blind basis, coroners and their opposite numbers in Denmark examine a sample of each other's case records. It is found that the Danes consistently report more suicides than do the English coroners on the same case material; thus considerable doubt is cast on the supposed difference in suicide rates between the two countries. In the second study, deaths by poisoning are examined for certain coroners' districts in England and Wales. It is shown that there is considerable variation from one district to another in the relative proportions of these deaths which achieve an accident, an open or a suicide verdict. This suggests that in England and Wales coroners may not be consistent in their suicide ascertainment criteria. Hypotheses attempting to account for differences in suicide rate based on such epidemiological surveys should be viewed with great caution.

Adolescent↗