Handbook : Unit informationEdith Cowan University

School: Medical and Health Sciences

This unit information may be updated and amended immediately prior to semester. To ensure you have the correct outline, please check it again at the beginning of semester.

• Unit Title

  Neuropsychiatry

• Unit Code

  OCT2205

• Year

  2021

• Enrolment Period

  2

• Version

  3

• Credit Points

  15

• Full Year Unit

  N

• Mode of Delivery

  On Campus
  

• Unit Coordinator

  Mrs Maree Carmel MESTICHELLI

---

Description

An introduction to the principles, processes, conditions and cultural factors that affect a persons mental health. Practices that are common in current mental health services, such as classification systems, aetiology assessment, management and prognostic factors will be examined. A range of disorders will be studied,including those that are common in childhood, adolescence and elders. Attention is given to the sensitivities health workers need to consider when working with specific client populations, especially those from other cultures.

Prerequisite Rule

Students must pass 4 units from OCT1102, OCT1205, OCT1206, OCT1208

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

1. Outline the cultural sensitivities and awareness needed to achieve cultural competency when working with people with mental health problems.
2. Analyse the impact of neuropsychiatric conditions upon the occupational performance of an individual.
3. Evaluate the principles of the health and wellness approach to mental health care and integrate these with an occupational perspective to enhance health and wellbeing.
4. Describe at a basic level the neuropsychiatric processes and conditions that affect a persons health.

Unit Content

1. Cultural psychiatry and how culture plays a role in specific mental health disorders and the sensitivities health workers need to consider when working with specific client populations.
2. Common psychiatric disorders: mood, anxiety, schizophrenia and psychosis, neurotic and stress-related, personality, and psychoactive substance use.
3. Introduction to the principles of models (e.g. recovery and strengths) that promote self-responsibility and management and the skills, tools and perspectives required for their implementation.
4. Psychiatry of disorders related to eating disorders, disability, childhood, adolescence and elders.
5. Examination of evidence that major mental illness does not necessarily mean lifelong disability.
6. A review of the restrictions that mental health policies and practices that focus on "protection and safety" impose on people with mental illness.
7. Introduction to the principles, processes and conditions that affect a persons mental health.
8. A health and wellness approach to mental health that employs features more commonly associated with assertive communityinterventions and supports.

Learning Experience

Students will attend on campus classes as well as engage in learning activities through ECUs LMS

For more information see the Semester Timetable

Additional Learning Experience Information

Lectures and experiential laboratories. Students will conduct a mental health week promotion event on campus and in the local shopping centre in conjunction with the local mental health consumers and community mental health workers. They will be required to liaise with the university centres, other agencies, local businesses and community members. This unit involves collaboration with experts delivering guest lectures during the semester. A mental health consumer is invited to speak to the students about their lived experience.

Assessment

GS1 GRADING SCHEMA 1 Used for standard coursework units

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant School Progression Panel.

Core Reading(s)

• Boland, R., Verduin, M., & Ruiz, P. (2021). Kaplan & Sadock’s Synopsis of Psychiatry (12th ed.). Wolters Kluwer Health. Retrieved from https://ecu.on.worldcat.org/oclc/881019573

---