There is now wide agreement that people with severe mental illness can be adequately treated and cared for in the community, provided back-up hospital care is available when needed. Another important development has been the recognition that clinical treatment and care is insufficient for recovery and restoration of role functioning following illness onset, and must be supplemented by evidence-based practices in psychiatric rehabilitation. This article describes how allied health professionals can lead recovery oriented approaches that incorporate evidence-based forms of psychiatric rehabilitation. Family psychoeducation and supported employment are provided as examples of such evidence-based practices that require wider implementation.

The objective of the study was to determine the effect of task-specific self-efficacy on stages of readiness for change among people with substance abuse problems. Participants were 140 men and 33 women with substance abuse problems receiving services in outpatient therapeutic community service programs. The Stages of Change Scale-Substance Abuse (SCS-SA) was the outcome measure. People with substance abuse problems receiving outpatient treatment services can be meaningfully classified into four stages of change groups: (1) Precontemplation, (2) Inactive, (3) Ambivalent-Conforming, and (4) Participation. Readiness for change is related to self-efficacy in work-related skills and risk-avoidance skills. Task-specific self-efficacy is related to stages of change. The findings of this study suggested that providing skill training to enhance task specific self-efficacy can help people with substance abuse problems progress from lower level to higher level of stages of change.

This study examined the post-injury rehabilitation needs of 158 adult siblings of persons with traumatic brain injury (TBI) in the United States. The mean age of participants was 37.0 years (SD = 10.0 years), and their ages ranged from 19 to 72 years. A total of 120 (75.9%) of the participants were female. Participants completed the Family Needs Questionnaire (FNQ) (Kreutzer, 1988), which measures the unique needs of families following TBI. The FNQ counts the types of needs rated as important and the frequency in which those needs have been met. Data were analysed via hierarchical multiple regression analysis with the number of met needs set as the outcome variable. A total of 15 predictor variables assessed direct and indirect markers of caregiving related stresses corresponding to position in the Pearlin stress process model. Participants indicated that health information was the most important need while needs for involvement with care were the most often met. Results also indicated that participant feelings of more restrictions in valued family activities and perceptions of greater cognitive-behavioural impairments with their injured siblings were associated with lower number of met rehabilitation needs. Participants reported that the use of effective coping behaviours and access to social support were associated with higher numbers of met rehabilitation needs. Findings suggest adult siblings share similar needs to parents and spouses (i.e., the most common primary caregivers) and require professional attention and support following TBI.

Archival data from a cross-sectional survey of two cohorts of community-residing New Zealand adults (n = 157; n = 141) was analysed to examine social attitudes towards people with mental illness in a historical period associated with the establishment of a community mental health facility. Participants completed the Opinions about Mental Illness (OMI; Cohen & Struening, 1959), and the Comfort in Interaction Scale (CI, Beckwith & Mathews, 1994); the latter a measure of level of prior contact with people with mental illness. Across cohorts, the OMI Mental Hygiene subscale and the CI scale had significant variability. Older participants endorsed more Authoritarian, Social Restrictiveness and Interpersonal Ideology attitudes in their perception of people with mental illness than younger participants. Data supported the hypothesis that attitudes towards people with mental illness were influenced by social attitudes, and by opportunities to interact with people with mental illness in work settings.

This study examined personality characteristics of undergraduate and graduate students in rehabilitation counselling programs. Cluster analysis of 204 NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) personality profiles of these students indicated a three-cluster solution as optimal. These three personality clusters were identified as the Therapist Personality cluster, Case Manager Personality cluster, and the Sensitive Personality cluster. Implications for rehabilitation job roles, rehabilitation education, and counselling are discussed.

The objective of the study was to validate the factorial structure of the short form of the Sense of Coherence Scale (SOC-13) with a sample of substance abuse clients to facilitate health promotion research with this population in the future. Participants were 406 clients recruited from seven residential therapeutic community programs for the treatment of substance abuse. Four confirmatory factor models were tested: (1) a three-factor correlated model; (2) a two-factor correlated model; (3) a 13-item one-factor model; and (4) a 9-item one-factor model. The results indicated that the data did not fit the three-factor correlated model and the two-factor correlated model, whereas empirical data fits the 13-item one-factor and the 9-item one-factor models reasonably well, with the latter representing a significantly better fit than the former one. These results are consistent with previous studies and reflected a unidimensional factor in the sense of coherence, as opposed to the two or three-factor structure. The SOC-9 has considerable promise as a brief measure of SOC in substance abuse assessment and treatment settings.

The purposes of this review article are to gather existing evidence on the contributing factors in affecting the psychosocial adjustment among people with chronic pain, and to promote a comprehensive conceptual framework in this topic by adapting Wallander and colleagues' (1989) Risk and Resistance Model of Adjustment. Our intention is to promote future empirical research that will validate this working conceptual framework and will provide and clinical guidelines for rehabilitation professionals who work with people with chronic pain.

The aim of this study was to describe and analyze how caseworkers in the Swedish disability services deal with people disabled by road accidents. Data were collected by means of a web-based survey of 259 caseworkers, and a direct content analysis of open-ended questions was used to interpret and analyse the data. The conceptual toolbox consisted of Habermas' lifeworld-system dichotomy, social recognition, and concepts from human service organisation research. Dilemmas within the following areas were identified: interaction with the service users, experiences of communication, assessment of needs, and inter-organisational cooperation between health care and disability services. These difficulties occurred because of tensions between ‘lifeworld’ and ‘system’, and because social recognition and mutual communicative action were not easy to achieve when cognitive impairments distorted and prevented the development of an ‘ideal speech situation’. Inter-organisational cooperation was difficult because of different regulations and professional perspectives.