Joseph Lloyd Davies

Cardiff Metropolitan University | cardiffmet · Department of Applied Psychology

This study aimed to explore if unconscious awareness of death influences the harshness of offender sentencing. According to Terror Management Theory death is anxiety-provoking, and self-esteem and a belief in a shared cultural worldview keep anxiety at bay. When these factors are challenged then death awareness increases. These dynamics could be re...

Purpose This study aims to explore the ethical challenges of managing the weight of psychiatric patients in the least restrictive manner in secure mental health settings and whether these could be considered as a source of moral distress for health practitioners, which may be linked to staff burnout and ultimately lead to suboptimal patient care....

The current study examined how willing a non-probability sample of adults were to engage in hypothetical activities typical of County Lines, and whether involvement could be predicted by perceived risk factors. Of the 101 participants; 48% were willing to engage in activities that could lead to cuckooing, 63% to a coffee meet up, 50% to transferrin...

Forensic mental health services play a key role in the diversion, treatment, rehabilitation, and supervision of offenders with mental health problems in Europe. Private sector providers are increasingly commissioned to provide secure care for service users. Questions have been raised about the effectiveness of the private sector providers. A sample...

This report was commissioned by the Welsh Government as part of the Dyfodol Programme. The Joint National Collaborative Commissioning Unit & Royal College of Psychiatrists Wales Dyfodol Programme supports the enhancement of secondary care mental health services and delivery of optimal care for those people in Wales with serious and enduring mental...

Background: Dignity-related psychological distress can often be unidentified and untreated within palliative care services. The Patient Dignity Inventory (PDI) measures the factors associated with an individual’s sense of dignity-related psychological distress. This study aimed to obtain staff members’ perspectives on the feasibility of utilising t...

People in secure psychiatric services experience high levels of exposure to early psychological trauma, are often diagnosed with severe mental illness (SMI) and have increased risk for obesity. Developmental trauma, SMI and obesity are associated with poor physical health outcomes and early death. This study aimed to assess the predictive power of...

This paper explored the novel use of an educational tool to assess its influence on County Lines victimisation. Participants (n = 122) were randomly assigned to receive either County Lines education or no County Lines education and then rate their likelihood to engage in five hypothetical scenarios typical of County Lines victimisation verses a tex...

Many people treated in secure inpatient services have a serious mental illness and are obese. This study aimed to assess the predictive power of demographic, clinical and pharmacological factors on secure inpatient weight gain during the initial stages of treatment. Retrospective data pertaining to body weight, sex, diagnosis, and prescribed medica...

Purpose This study aims to understand the perceived causes and consequences of weight gain within a secure psychiatric inpatient service in South Wales. Design/methodology/approach A purposive sample of 12 staff members were interviewed. These interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis. Findings Three themes were id...

Review of secure mental health care for Welsh patients

People who have serious mental illness experience greater levels of early mortality compared to their mentally healthy counterparts (Chesney, Goodwin & Fazel, 2014). This early death is largely attributed to physical illnesses that are associated with obesity. Individuals who have serious mental illness and who are treated in secure psychiatric hos...

Obesity rates are high among psychiatric populations; inpatients typically gain three to five pounds a month during initial treatment (Wetterling, 2001; Shin et al., 2002) and weight gain in psychiatric patients has been attributed to specific psychotropic medications (Leucht et al., 2013). Apart from medication, inpatient weight gain may also be m...

Obesity rates are high among psychiatric populations with research suggesting that inpatients on average gain three to five pounds a month during initial treatment (Wetterling, 2001; Shin et al., 2002). This can have detrimental implications for the patient group with life expectancy being 20 years shorted than the general population (Laursen, 2011...