The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "psychiatric care" ...
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Patient Safety Crisis at Parkland
This investigation takes a look at Parkland Memorial Hospital, which mostly treats Dallas' most vulnerable patients, the poor and the elderly. The findings are shocking and extensive, including patient neglect, unsupervised practices from doctors in training and poorly trained psychiatric technicians.
Tags: hospitals; psychiatric care; patient neglect
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Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America
The books details the startling rise since 1955 in the number of "disabled" mentally ill adults in our society. The book asks if if the "drug-based paradigm of care" in the U.S. is fueling the epidemic of mental illness.
Tags: mental illness; disabled; drugs
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Compromised Care
Using confidential documents, computer datasets and gripping interviews, the reporters were able to expose widespread violence and abuse in the Illinois nursing homes and psychiatric hospitals that serve the poor.
Tags: Medicaid; elderly; abuse; psychiatric hospitals; sexual assault
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Medicating the Military
The stories looked at the nature and scope of the use of prescription drugs in the military community, with a focus on psychiatric medications and painkillers. The reporting found that use of psychiatric medications has risen dramatically in the past several years and some doctors suggest it may be a factor in the military's suicide epidemic of recent years. Reporters found that many psychiatric drugs - including powerful anti-convulsants and anti-psychotic medications - were being used "off label", or in ways not formally approved by the FDA. Reporters found that many troops were taking up to 10 medications at a time in so-called drug cocktails that experts say are untested and unproven in these combinations. Reporters also found that deaths caused by accidental drug overdoses had tripled during the past several years and that the Army's specialty care units were quietly conducting internal investigations and making significant changes to hospital protocols to reduce risk of accidental deaths. Finally, they found that psychiatric drug usage was also up significantly among military children.
Tags: Military; Army; Veteran; Health; Wellness; Medicine; Drugs; Pain killers; Psychiatric Medication; Mental Health; Suicide; Depression; Military Children; Hospital; Prescription
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The Versed Protocol
An emergency protocol in Nashville to use injections of a powerful tranquilizer, called Versed, does not require patient consent to be administered to restrain the person during "excited delirium."
Tags: sedative; taser; restraint; euphoria; midazolam; hospital; psychiatric care;
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Trouble at Delaware Psychiatric Center
If the nurse at the Delaware Psychiatric Center (DPC) report the patient abuse or neglect of the lesser-trained attendant staff, their cars would be vandalized and they would suffer other forms of retaliation. One patient had his jaw broken in three places due to an attendant assault, several females reported they’d been raped in DPC, and questions of the criminal backgrounds of doctors were raised.
Tags: sexual assault; abuse; felony assault; patient care; hospital abuse; Susan Watson Robinson
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Western State
"The series looked at violence and the use of restraints and isolation at Western State Hospital, the state's chief psychiatric hospital. It also examined the use of a new generation of anti-psychotic drug at the hospital and their effects on patients."
Tags: hospitals; health care; psychiatric; anti-psychotic drugs; patients; violence
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Head Games
Alan Pendergast, staffwriter for Denver's Westword reports that in 2004, 20% of Colorado's jail population was diagnosed with severe mental illness, and "the true number may be much higher, since some inmates' illnesses are never properly diagnosed." The story compares cost of psychiatric lock-up versus community mental health care. Pendergast advises other journalists doing similar stories should "insist that someone in the accontable chain of command review and comment on the records, even if the actual treatment providers are refusing to be interviewed."
Tags: prison mental illness; correctional systems; lockdown; supermax prison; ADHD; Department of Corrections; forensic psychiatry; head cases; administrative segregation; HIPPA; San Carlos Correctional Facility; Offenders WIth Serious Mental Illness; OSMI; National Institute on Drug Abuse; Mental Health Occupations Grievance Board
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Twin Towers
'Twin Towers' (L.A. County Jail and also the nation's largest mental institution), was investigated for three months and found the jail to be a 'terrible place to house the mentally ill'. But because community clinics are full to capacity, caring for persons with mental problems continues to fall onto the lap of 'under-trained and overwhelmed' law enforcement personnel.
Tags: jail; L.A. county jail; mentally ill inmates; psychiatric disorders; prison guards; mental health
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Castaway Children: Maine's Most Vulnerable Kids
Thr Portland Press Herald /Maine Sunday Telegram series on Maine's children with psychiatric and emotional illnesses and funding. Six months was spent interviewing more than 500 sources for the story about Maine's mental health care system for children.
Tags: mental health; children's mental health; mental health services; psychiatric hospitals; suicide; juvenile delinquents