Erlend Mork

• Doctor of Philosophy
• University of Oslo

Background Shared decision-making between clinicians and service users is crucial in mental health care. One significant barrier to achieving this goal is the lack of user-centered services. Integrating digital tools into mental health services holds promise for addressing some of these challenges. However, the implementation of digital tools, such...

Shame and guilt are universal emotions meant to elicit socially approved behaviors and inhibit antisocial behavior. Excessive feelings of shame and guilt—shame especially—are linked to various destructive behaviors, difficulties in emotion regulation, maladaptive personality traits, psychological difficulties, and negative impacts on treatment outc...

BACKGROUND Strengthening shared decision-making in mental healthcare may improve quality of services and treatment outcomes, but its implementation in services for severe mental disorders is currently lacking. OBJECTIVE This study aims to explore the feasibility and acceptability of the mobile app iTandem as a digital tool promoting shared decisio...

ABSTRACTBackground: Extensive psychiatric hospitalization due to repeated severe self-harm (SH), is a poorly researched area, but a challenge within health services (HS). Recent studies have demonstrated high levels of involuntary treatment among patients with severe personality disorder (PD) and complex comorbidity. Keeping focus on extensively ho...

Background: Extensive psychiatric hospitalization due to repeated severe self-harm (SH), is a poorly researched area, but a challenge within health services (HS). Recent studies have demonstrated high levels of involuntary treatment among patients with severe personality disorder (PD) and complex comorbidity. Keeping focus on extensively hospitali...

BACKGROUND Shared decision-making between clinicians and service users is crucial in mental health care. One significant barrier to achieving this goal is the lack of user-centered services. Integrating digital tools into mental health services holds promise for addressing some of these challenges. However, the implementation of digital tools, such...

Background Severe self-harm leading to extensive hospitalization generates extreme challenges for patients, families, and health services. Controversies regarding diagnoses and health care often follow. Most evidence-based treatments targeting self-harm are designed for borderline personality disorder (BPD). However, current knowledge about mental...

With the increasing trend of digitalisation in the health sector, eHealth is being deployed to facilitate interaction between health professionals and service users without physical contact or close proximity. It became prominent during the COVID-19 era when mobility for physical meetings was restricted. Focusing on a video-supported digital toolki...

Background Informal care is vital to many people with severe mental illness under normal circumstances. Little is known about how extraordinary circumstances affect relatives with a family member with mental illness. This study investigated the consequences of the first COVID-19 lockdown in Norway from the perspective of relatives of persons with p...

Introduction The COVID‐19 pandemic affects people globally, but it may affect people with psychotic and bipolar disorders disproportionally. Our aims were to investigate the pandemic impact on perceived wellbeing and mental health in this population, including which pandemic‐related factors have had an impact. Methods People with psychotic and bip...

Background Many relatives of people with psychotic and bipolar disorders experience a high caregiver burden normally. During the first COVID-19 lockdown, mental health services partly shut down in many countries. The impact on relatives is unknown. Aims Explore how relatives of people with psychotic and bipolar disorders experienced changes in tre...

People presenting at general hospitals following a suicide attempt are a high-risk patient population posing significant challenges to hospital staff and aftercare providers. However, due to lack of knowledge, high work stress and lack of coordination, clinicians frequently provide insufficient psychosocial assessments and treatments. Most experts...

Studies from several countries suggest that erecting fences on popular bridges may be an effective way of reducing the risk of suicide by jumping from these bridges. Distribution of suicides by jumping off bridges has not yet been studied on a national level in any country. This study included all suicides by jumping from high places registered in...

Etter at Norge var ett av de forste landene som utarbeidet en nasjonal strategi pa 90-tallet, har vi ikke hatt en helhetlig nasjonal strategiplan for forebygging av selvmord i Norge siden 2002. Det er derfor en viktig milepael nar Handlingsplan for forebygging av selvmord og selvskading 2014-2017 na foreligger. En kort oppsummering av handlingsplan...

Insight into psychosis has been linked to suicidality, although inconsistently. The co-variation between insight and suicidality over time is under-investigated. The aim of the present study was to investigate predictors of suicidality in patients with first episode of psychosis (FEP) over one year, focusing on the relationship between insight and...

Studies have shown that adolescents with a history of both suicide attempts and non-suicidal self-harm report more mental health problems and other psychosocial problems than adolescents who report only one or none of these types of self-harm. The current study aimed to examine the use of child and adolescent psychiatric services by adolescents wit...

To investigate whether schizophrenia patients with both suicide attempts and non-suicidal self-harm have earlier age of onset of psychotic and depressive symptoms and higher levels of clinical symptoms compared to patients with only suicide attempts or without suicide attempt. Using a cross-sectional design, 251 patients (18--61 years old, 58% men)...

This study examines whether there is a difference between urban versus suburban and rural adolescents in their use of health services following two types of self-harm distinguished as self-harm with or without suicide intent. A nationwide cross-sectional school survey of 11 406 Norwegian adolescents aged 13-19 years in 73 Norwegian junior and senio...

Background Previous studies in bipolar disorder investigating childhood trauma and clinical presentations of the illness have mainly focused on physical and sexual abuse. Our aim was to explore further the relationship between childhood trauma and disease characteristics in bipolar disorder to determine which clinical characteristics were most stro...

This study describes the prevalence, clinical characteristics, and gender profile of self-harm in a cross-sectional sample of 388 patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. All patients were interviewed and assessed with respect to lifetime self-harm and relevant clinical variables. An overall of 49% of the patients reported self-harm which wa...

IntroductionThe Magnitude of the ProblemFollow-up Treatments for Suicide AttemptersRecommended Standards of Care and Aftercare of Suicide AttemptersAdherence to Recommended Treatment StandardsThe Norwegian Chain of Care ModelConclusions and Recommendations for Policy and Clinical PracticeReferences

The aim of this study was to investigate whether suicide attempters had higher IQ, better executive functioning, or were more impulsive as measured by neuropsychological tests than non-attempters in a group of patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. One hundred seventy-four patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders were assessed with a...

The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis seems dysregulated and part of the pathophysiology in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, but the underlying mechanisms are unknown. Recent evidence indicates that systemic cortisol metabolism influences blood cortisol levels and HPA axis functioning. Our objective was to estimate systemic cortisol meta...

Dysfunction of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is documented in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, but the mechanism is unclear; recently, increased activity of cortisol metabolizing enzymes was indicated in these disorders. We investigated whether five genes involved in cortisol metabolism were associated with altered activity of co...

Suicidal behaviour is prevalent in psychotic disorders. Insight has been found to be associated with increased risk for suicidal behaviour, but not consistently. A possible explanation for this is that insight has different consequences for patients depending on their beliefs about psychosis. The present study investigated whether a relationship be...

The aim of this paper was to study the collaboration between emergency departments (EDs) in general hospitals and community health services (CHS) in Norway when providing psychosocial care and aftercare to patients treated in EDs following a suicide attempt. We wanted to explore the extent to which quality indicators at the hospital level measured...

The suicide risk in psychotic disorders is highest in the early phases of illness. Studies have typically focused on suicidality from treatment start rather than actual onset of psychosis. This study explored the prevalence and characteristics of suicidality in patients with a first episode of psychosis (FEP) in two time intervals: 1) prior to stud...

The objective of this study was to identify predictors of a high level of quality of care for suicide attempters at general hospital emergency departments in Norway. Structured interviews with key informants covering the quality of care of patients admitted following attempted suicide were conducted in 1999 and 2006 at 87% of all general hospitals....

Early onset of bipolar disorder (BD) is an important clinical predictor of a more severe course and poorer outcome. A higher proportion of childhood onset BD has been reported in studies from USA compared to Europe. We investigated age at onset of first affective episode in a Norwegian sample and compared it to previous European and US findings. In...

Routines and standards of care for parasuicide patients in general hospitals in Norway were reviewed in relation to international and national recommendations. Telephone interviews were conducted with personnel at all Norwegian general hospitals with emergency units. 55 of a total of 58 hospitals participated (95%). Two thirds of the hospitals repo...

BACKGROUND: Routines and standards of care for parasuicide patients in general hospitals in Norway were reviewed in relation to international and national recommendations. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Telephone interviews were conducted with personnel at all Norwegian general hospitals with emergency units. 55 of a total of 58 hospitals participated (95%...