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Abstract
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Do you know what you are drinking? Do you know what your patients/clients are drinking? Can you distinguish among a drink, beverage, energizer, fortified beverage, sports drink, shot, or dietary supplement? If you drink coffee or tea, do you know how much caffeine is in each ounce?
These questions came about when consumers of mental health services were assisting high energy drink (HED) researchers to design a revision of an existing HED survey. The original survey, designed for teenagers and college students, and modified for psychiatric nurses, was reported in the January issue of the Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services (Smoyak, Nowik, & Lee, 2015). Consumers attending the Freehold Community Wellness Center, sponsored by Collaborative Support Programs of New Jersey (access http://www.cspnj.org), were approached. In this editorial, they will be referred to as consumers collaborating with Rutgers researchers (CCRC).
The new project, with CCRC, was to create an instrument that would provide answers to questions about the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of individuals with mental illness about HED. Nothing in the literature exists about the use patterns of consumers of mental health services regarding HED and psychoactive agents. Use patterns, such as consuming HED before a psychiatric diagnosis or afterwards or instead of (i.e., in place of filling their prescription for psychoactive agents), have not been studied and reported....
Language: en |