Developing a Literature Search Strategy for Health and Community Care

This report outlines a literature search strategy focused on Health and Community Care, specifically comparing the social and medical models in treating mental health issues. The search strategy includes defining the research question, identifying key search terms such as 'social model theory,' 'medical model theory,' and 'treatment of patients,' and establishing inclusion and exclusion criteria for relevant sources. Databases like EBSCO and PsycINFO were utilized to gather journal articles and online books. The report details the selection process, noting the discarding of irrelevant journals and the final selection of five journals that significantly contributed to understanding the impact of the social model on mental health. The research emphasizes the importance of self-management and overall wellbeing in mental health services, aligning with the social model's focus on growth and self-actualization rather than solely relying on medical treatments.

Running Head: Health and Community Care
Health and Community Care

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Contents
Introduction to the topic.............................................................................................................................1
Definition of search terms...........................................................................................................................2
Inclusion/ Exclusion Criteria........................................................................................................................2
Information sources....................................................................................................................................3
Record of search areas................................................................................................................................3
Outputs........................................................................................................................................................3
References...................................................................................................................................................3

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Introduction to the topic
Ramson and Williams explained that mental services are treated through bio-medical based
models. These models explore the dominance of bio-medical aspect in the delivery of mental
health services of a person. The bio-medical model of the mental health services are so far been
used widely to cure the inefficiency of people. For most of the mental health services users, this
theory has been widely used to help them to resolve the social problems and erase their
personality disorder. Further talking about the social model theory, Thomas Szasz and notably
R.D. Laing and David Cooper stated that they want to move the traditional medical psychiatry to
the social approached of mental health which explores the social issues of mental distress (Meyer
2013).
In the medical model theory includes genetics, neuroimaging and neurobiology aspects of mental
health. The genetic model suggests the mental disorder activities are inherited from parents to
their children. The evidence of this can be seen in familiar transmission of many disorders.
Neuroimaging phase explains that mental illness is structural change in different parts of a
person’s brain. And lastly the neurobiology part of the medical model explains that mental
illness in a person occurs when the natural designed functions of their body breakdown and fails
to function properly (Tedeschi 2013). Apart from that the social model of metal health states that
these problems arise when a person fails to reach their respective potential growth. This
approach lays focus on the process of growth and self- actualization apart from curing diseases
through medications (Payne 2015).
In the perspective of a service user and a support worker of mental health, social model has been
so far regarded as the best model to cure people. This model is anti-psychiatry and which states
that medical treatment is not the correct way to cure the person from the illness for eternity
(Blondel, Guillaume, Lambiotte, and Lefebvre 2008). The addictive drugs which are used by the
practitioner are in rehabilitation centers only cures them for a short span of time which makes the
patient to revisit the hospital after certain time duration. But the practice of social perspective is
different as they do not find it as a problem. In the recent years the department of health
undertook a mental health research with the service users and survivors in a consultation meeting
(Reeves, et. al., 2008). The outcomes of the meeting stated that the concept of mental health

Health and Community Care 3
revolves around the process of self-management and improving overall wellbeing of service
users. They also stated that research needs to be more comprehensive and intend to use the social
model for development. The psychosocial perspective under this case suggests that mental
disorder is due to interaction between psychological and social factors of the body. Thus, it
should be noted that the causes of mental illness are complicated as under this phase abnormal
brain functioning results in mental illness (Overton, and Medina 2008).
Research Question: Social model theory or medical model, which theory is better in treating the
patients suffering from mental health issues?
Definition of search terms
The search themes in the above mentioned research question is distributed in three main aspects
which are discussed below:
1) Social model theory
2) medical model theory
3) Treatment of patients
Keywords: Social model theory: social theory in mental health, theories of mental health,
madness and distress, impact of social theory on mental illness, feminism, treatment through
social model theory, anti-psychiatry, social perspective, psychosocial theory
Medical model in mental health: Marxist theory, bio-medical theory of mental illness, treatment
through medical illness, queer theory, genetics theory, neuroimaging and neurobiology theory of
medical model.
Treatment of mental patients: service users experience in social model theory: service users
experience in mental illness, impact of mental illness, support workers perspective in mental
illness, social perspective in treatment of mentally disabled.
Headings of the subjects can be searched in every database for the related meaning of the term
with the keyword. Wildcards, if possible can be used to evaluate and explain the study of all
literatures.

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Inclusion/ Exclusion Criteria
Inclusion
 The information placed in the above texts talks generally about the whole society
irrespective of the gender and age. Research question specifically focus on the social
theory which is implied on the mentally disabled person (Percy-Smith, and Thomas
2009).
 Information published in the peer reviewed academic journal and books is authentic and
reliable to the content which is discussed above.
 The quality of the content is pure and transformed into layman language for better
understanding. Meaning of the sentence has not been tampered in any form.
 The research has been carried out only from last ten years as information before that time
has been regarded as outdated.
Exclusion
 Information sourced before ten years from now is not qualified for the research.
 Information which not written in English language is excluded from the report.
 Information taken from the unauthentic sources like, blogs etc. is not included in the
above mentioned work.
Information sources
In order to complete the research on this topic, EBSCO and PsycINFO database are used to
provide journal and articles related to the content. Mental health journals are constantly search to
focus on the topic. Online books were also used are the primary sources of data to review the
literature (Nolen-Hoeksema, and Rector 2015).
Record of search areas
The literature has been formed considering the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the analysis.

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Outputs
The journals which were only related to the mental health were discarded as they were shallow
and didn’t portray the impact of social model on the mental health of patients. Also, some of
were discarded by looking at the abstract due to inefficiency of the literature to understand the
concept. Only 5 journals helped in understanding the relevancy of the topic.

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References
Blondel, V.D., Guillaume, J.L., Lambiotte, R. and Lefebvre, E., 2008. Fast unfolding of
communities in large networks. Journal of statistical mechanics: theory and
experiment, 2008(10), p.P10008.
Meyer, I.H., 2013. Prejudice, social stress, and mental health in lesbian, gay, and bisexual
populations: conceptual issues and research evidence.
Nolen-Hoeksema, S. and Rector, N.A., 2015. Abnormal psychology. Boston: McGraw-Hill.
Overton, S.L. and Medina, S.L., 2008. The stigma of mental illness. Journal of Counseling &
Development, 86(2), pp.143-151.
Payne, M., 2015. Modern social work theory. Oxford University Press.
Percy-Smith, B. and Thomas, N. eds., 2009. A handbook of children and young people's
participation: Perspectives from theory and practice. Routledge.
Reeves, S., Albert, M., Kuper, A. and Hodges, B.D., 2008. Why use theories in qualitative
research. Bmj, 337(7670), pp.631-4.
Tedeschi, J.T. ed., 2013. Impression management theory and social psychological research.
Academic Press.