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Towards smoke free mental health services - The New Zealand experience
Mark Wallace-Bell
Abstract
The National Heart Foundation (NZ) has long been aware of the prevalence of smoking in the wider Mental Health and Addiction fields and the need for a specialist cessation service. Recently this complicated issue has been highlighted by most District Health Boards in NZ not implementing smoke free policies within their mental health services.
The field is problematic for a number of reasons. Often mental health (MH) is separated from alcohol and other drugs (AOD) both clinically and theoretically. This results in services being structured in such a way that treatment is focused on either the presenting MH or AOD clinical problem. This dichotomy is not useful as many people who experience MH problems also have a significant A&D history which reflects the fact that there is a strong correlation between the two in terms of etiology and treatment. Largely it is not recognized that nicotine is a very addictive drug and that the majority of clients who present with AOD problems smoke. In addition, the MH field do not routinely diagnose tobacco dependence as an AXIS 1 disorder using DSM1V.
This paper will present findings from an ongoing project aiming for smokefree MH and AOD services in New Zealand and offer an opportunity to discuss the comples issues that beset this area.
Biography
Mark Wallace-Bell Ph.D (Mdx) BSc (Hons) RN C.Psychol (UK)
. Senior Lecturer in Addictions, National Addiction Centre, Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences,University of Otago
. National Heart Foundation of New Zealand Smoking Cessation Guidelines facilitator
Mark started his career as a General Nurse working in Intensive Care and emergency departments in London. He later graduated from the University of Middlesex (London) with an honours degree in psychology in 1992. Following this he worked as a researcher on several health psychology projects before enrolling as a PhD student. His PhD focused on the effect of smoking cessation on anxiety and processing of smoking-related stimuli. Mark gained his PhD in 2001 and then went on to work as a full time lecturer in health psychology at Middlesex University. He then registered as a Chartered Health Psychologist and developed his research and clinical interests in smoking cessation. In 2002 Mark moved to St George's Hospital Medical School, University of London in 2002 to work in the Centre for Addiction Studies as a Lecturer in Tobacco Addiction and Honorary Clinician with responsibility for clinical tobacco-related research. Here he was involved in developing smoking cessation!
services for general and mental health hospital patients.
He and his family moved to New Zealand early in 2004 and Mark started work with the National Addiction Centre shortly after as a Lecturer in Addictions with a focus on tobacco addiction. Mark is also works with the National Heart Foundation as a Smoking Cessation Guidelines facilitator, alongside Denise Barlow.
Author 1: Mark Wallace-Bell
Senior Lecturer in Addictions
National Addiction Center, University of Otago
4 Oxford Terrace
Christchurch
8008
New Zealand
Author 2: Beverly Kaaren
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