Summing Up Volume #40, Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Issues in Mental Health Nursing, and Looking Ahead to 2020

All too quickly, the end of the 40th year of Issues in Mental Health Nursing’s publication approaches. This year has been notable for an increase in submissions, approaching 400 as I write. Also notable is an increase in the journal’s Impact Factor, which is now 0.977. Evoking special pride for me were the three special topical issues we published in 2019. The year began with a special issue on global mental health, inspired by the Routledge Handbook of Global Mental Health Nursing, in which editors Edilma Yearwood and Vicki Hines-Martin (2017) pointed out large gaps in our knowledge about mental health care in many countries. Thankfully, authors from 11 countries responded to our Call for Manuscripts (Kenya, Portugal, South Korea, Thailand, Netherlands, Jordan, Canada, Iran, Australia, Turkey, and China). Although the creative interventions described in many of these papers in issue #1 were impressive, many obstacles remain if individuals with mental illness are to receive the care they truly need. As enumerated by Jacquelyn Flaskerud (2019, p. 82) in her excellent column in issue #1, obstacles present across the globe include “shortages of nurses, lack of training, and the limited scope of practice in different jurisdictions; scarce and inequitably distributed resources for mental health care (extremely so in low-income countries); and stigma affecting patients, families, communities, and economies.”

A timely and impressive special issue on technology in psychiatric-mental health clinical practice, research, and education was published in March (#3), truly challenging readers to “think outside the box” about topics such as apps, avatars, and robots (Miller & Polson, 2019), teleprecepting (Johnson, 2019), and high fidelity simulation (Abram & Forbes, 2019). Use of technology in research was illustrated in a paper by Anderson, Hundt, Dean, & Rose (2019), in which the data were obtained from blogs written by family caregivers. Guest editor Veronica Decker et al. (2019) described innovative uses of technology in the treatment of depression.

Brenda Happell brought to fruition a special issue in October (#10), addressing the urgent need to integrate physical healthcare into mental health services. Like our January issue, this topic also attracted manuscript submissions from many countries: Australia, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Turkey, Sweden, and the United States. Guest editor Happell issued an impassioned plea for academics, clinicians, managers, and policy officers to consider these papers as a “call to action,” so that preventable physical illnesses can be reduced in people with mental illness throughout the world.

I do not want to give short shrift to the contributions of many other authors to Volume 40, whose papers were not part of a “special issue.” Among the thought-provoking and valuable articles published in 2019 were papers on men with an eating disorder (Lyons, McAndrew, & Warne, 2019); victims of narcissistic abuse (Howard, 2019); problems of youth whose parents are incarcerated (Boch, Warren, & Ford, 2019); mental health needs of refugee women (Felsman, Humphreys, & Kronk, 2019); and refugee children (Cleary, West, Foong, McLean, & Kornhaber, 2019). A welcome trend this year is an increase in the number of letters to the editor, a healthy indicator of reader engagement and desire to respond. This is a trend I will happily nurture. Another avenue for lengthier reader response is submission to our “Comments, Critique, and Inspiration” Column.

In closing this review of the highlights of 2019, I must give a shout-out to our column editors and contributors. Our unique “Comments, Critique, and Inspiration” Column, edited by Michelle Cleary, continues to attract interesting essays, such as the piece by Lakeman (2019), “The Myth of the Well-Known Client.” Among the valuable “Cultural Competence” Columns this year was Jacquelyn Flaskerud’s exploration of the phenomenon of anger and its diverse cultural expressions. The journal continues to publish the useful summaries of Cochrane Collaboration reviews (e.g., atypical antipsychotic drugs for disruptive behavior disorders in children and youths). Marcie Parker and others have contributed book reviews in 2019, on timely topics such as internet addiction. I am deeply grateful to all of these column editors and contributors, who volunteer their expertise and time to make this journal excellent.

Looking ahead to 2020, Volume 41 will be “book-ended” by special issues in January and December. The January issue will focus on depression across the globe, with guest editor Barbara Warren. The December issue, with guest editor Marcie Parker, focuses on gambling disorder and its impact on families, communities, and workplaces. We are still accepting manuscripts for the gambling disorder issue until March.

As 2019 draws to a close, let us all remain committed to the improvement of mental health for all humans—despite the distressing political and social trends that are adversely affecting so many people, even in the “most developed” and most affluent, resource-rich countries. The veneer of civilization seems dangerously thin as we observe the depersonalizing treatment of refugees and racist hostilities spewing daily in social media. So much work remains for all of us to do.