Robert M. Factor

Sport psychiatry: a systematic review of diagnosis and medical treatment of mental illness in athletes.

Sport psychiatry focuses on diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric illness in athletes in addition to utilization of psychological approaches to enhance performance. As this field and its research base are relatively new, clinicians often deliver psychiatric care to athletes without a full understanding of the diagnostic and therapeutic issues unique to this population. In this systematic review, we discuss published findings relating to psychiatric diagnosis and medical treatment of mental illness in athletes.There have been several studies looking at the prevalence of some psychiatric disorders in various athlete populations. Eating disorders and substance abuse are the most studied of these disorders and appear to be common problems in athletes. However, to provide informed understanding and treatment, we especially need more research on overtraining syndrome, bipolar disorder, suicidality, anxiety disorders, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and psychosis in athletes. Research is needed in the areas of prevalence, risk factors, prognosis and the unique experiences facing athletes with any of these disorders.Additionally, there have not been any large, systematic studies on the use of psychotropic medications in athletes. Small studies suggest that some medications may either be performance enhancing or detrimental to performance, but we need larger studies with rigorous methodology. Higher level athletes suffering from psychiatric symptoms often have reservations about taking medications with unknown performance and safety effects, and methodological issues with the current literature database preclude any definitive conclusions on performance effects of psychiatric medications. We need many more, higher quality studies on the use by athletes of antidepressants, mood stabilizers, anxiolytics, stimulants and other ADHD medications, sedative-hypnotics and antipsychotics. Such studies should utilize sensitive performance measures and involve longer term use of psychotropic medications. Furthermore, study subjects should include athletes who actually have the psychiatric disorder for which the medication is proposed, and should include more women.

A model community psychiatry curriculum for psychiatric residents.

The ability of mental health practitioners to work well with persons with serious long-term mental illness has expanded significantly over the past two decades. Learning to do this well involves acquiring a broad base of knowledge and a complex range of skills. Such knowledge and experience must be incorporated into the basic residency curriculum for general psychiatrists, though with some notable exceptions this has not occurred for a number of important reasons, including money and the new image that psychiatry is trying to assume. The key elements of such a curriculum include 1) specific learning goals, 2) working within an effective treatment system with high quality clinical rotations, 3) good role models, 4) high quality psychiatric supervision, 5) a well-grounded didactic program, and 6) high quality clinical rotations. We discuss these elements in detail, and we describe the training program in community psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin Medical School Department of Psychiatry. Our residency training program and supervising faculty are affiliated with and partially funded by the Mental Health Center of Dane County to the benefit of both. This marriage between the public-sector mental health care provider and the academic psychiatric training program has created benefits for both parents plus a fertile environment for training future generations of psychiatrists.

Considerations in the Use of Stimulants in Sport.

Medication treatment of adult athletes with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is controversial. Some articles and guidelines support the use of stimulant medications in this population, while others advise against it. We believe that the important issues regarding the use of stimulant medications in athletes include the likelihood of performance enhancement, poor inter-rater reliability of ADHD diagnosis in relation to therapeutic use, policies of sport-governing bodies, psychiatric treatment of mental illness, and dangerous consequences of use. We review the literature on these five issues and conclude by discussing the ethical principle of fairness, and suggest some proposals regarding the use of stimulants by athletes that balance these five issues and fairness. Our ultimate recommendation is that stimulants should not be used by high-level adult athletes.

Group treatment for individuals with schizophrenia

Comprehensive treatment programs for individuals with schizophrenia usually include a variety of groups, many of which have concrete tasks as a focus: medication management, social skills training, meal preparation, etc. These groups can simultaneously serve more general rehabilitative purposes if leaders apply principles of group leadership which recognize the neuropathological substrate of schizophrenia and which take into account the specific interpersonal characteristics and needs of individuals who have the illness. This paper presents a framework for leading task-oriented groups for individuals with schizophrenia and give examples from a medication group in a psychosocial rehabilitation program.

Response to “training residents for community psychiatric practice”

There is a critical need for more psychiatrists capable of community psychiatry practice, and effective residency education in community psychiatry is crucial to fill this need. In addition to developing residency curricula in community psychiatry, there are some additional steps that we believe are necessary to fill the need for psychiatrists capable of community psychiatry practice. (1) We need a process to get more training programs to implement good curricular suggestions. (2) We need to appreciate that many of our graduates will work in systems that have a limited view of the role of a psychiatrist, and we need to train residents to be able to enter a clinical setting and develop an effective role for themselves. (3) Quality training experiences in community psychiatry should encourage more graduates to work with seriously ill persons in community settings. In order for this to happen, however, we need to deal with a problem more general than adopting curricular suggestions: that of attracting professionals to work with poor, disenfranchised, low-status individuals. (4) Finally, we need to appreciate that there are major conflicts between the attitudes and roles needed to be a successful community psychiatrist and the attitudes and roles taught throughout the rest of medical education, from medical school through residency.

Psychiatric nursing roles in a community mental health center

We describe the addition of medication monitoring to the duties of nurses working as case managers in a day treatment program for the chronically mentally ill. The nurses used their medical and behavioral knowledge to form a more complete picture of the patient than either a visiting psychiatrist or a case-manager who was not a nurse could do. This improved the integration of medication and other patient management decisions. It also improved cooperation between psychiatrists and nurses, better using the time and skills of both.

Community psychiatry tracks for residents: a review of four programs.

Many psychiatry residency graduates end up practicing at least in part in community settings. However, declining funding and other issues prevent many residency programs from offering robust community psychiatry training to all of their residents. Accordingly, some residency programs have developed Community Psychiatry Tracks, with the goal of developing future leaders in public sector psychiatry. We cataloged US psychiatry residency programs offering Community Psychiatry Tracks by reviewing the literature and surveying training directors and members of the American Association of Community Psychiatrists. Authors from each of the four programs found to be actively offering such tracks describe their track curricula, from which we elucidated common and variable elements as well as strengths and weaknesses and then make recommendations for other programs wishing to start a track. A Community Psychiatry Track preliminarily appears to be a well-received way to offer enhanced Community Psychiatry training to interested residents, to recruit medical students to residency programs, to offer opportunities for collaboration between residents and faculty members, and to expand opportunities for scholarly work by residents.