Improving Mental Wellbeing of Forensic Psychiatric Outpatients (1 CE)

This course is for:  Clinical Psychologists, Nurses, and Counselors

Course By: Tamara Avery, PsyD

Content By: Swinkels, L. T. A., van der Pol, T. M., Popma, A., ter Harmsel, J. F., & Dekker, J. J. M. (2020). Improving mental wellbeing of forensic psychiatric outpatients through the addition of an informal social network intervention to treatment as usual: A randomized trial. BMC Psychiatry, 20 (418), 1-15. 

Course Description: Forensic psychiatric patients often suffer from a variety of mental health and social problems. Evidence-based assessments and interventions for this demographic are scarce and treatment options are limited. The main goal of forensic psychiatric treatment is to reduce the risk of criminal recidivism. Therefore, forensic psychiatric treatment should be multimodal and personalized. This multimodal approach should focus on improving the patient’s social context and mental health issues, as related to the identified problem behavior. Forensic mental healthcare can be notably optimized via collaboration with informal care or community initiatives that are aimed at improving positive social networks.  

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify the 3 study aims and methods related to forensic psychiatric outpatient mental wellbeing as examined in the article
2. Integrate the 5 study strengths with the 5 challenge areas identified in the study
3. Generalize the possibility and/or plausibility of applying the 3 aims of the study for improved mental wellbeing

Course Outline:

• Read and understand Improving mental wellbeing of forensic psychiatric outpatients through the addition of an informal social network intervention to treatment as usual: a randomized controlled trial
• Review the Course Description and Learning Objectives
• Consider the factors related to the effectiveness of adding a social network intervention to forensic outpatient populations
• Work through the post-test questions; keep in mind that answer selections should be derived from the respective article
• Return to the referenced article for any missed questions and/or to better understand the relationship between outpatient forensic mental healthcare and the decrease in criminal recidivism when coupled with a social support network

Approvals: