Introduction

The Journal of Psychiatric Intensive Care was launched in September 2005 and the latest edition has been published in June 2006. The journal represents an exciting opportunity to further develop the specialty of psychiatric intensive care and low secure unit practice. As with any journal, the quality and success of the project will depend upon the willingness of the Psychiatric Intensive Care/Low Secure community to submit papers. The success of the journal will be crucial to establishing psychiatric intensive care as a credible, theoretically underpinned and distinct clinical specialty. .

Roland Dix, Editor-in-Chief, Wotton Lawn Hospital, Gloucester, UK

Journal Mission Statement

Published bi-annually, the Journal of Psychiatric Intensive Care will be devoted to issues affecting the care and treatment of people with mental disorder who manifest severely disturbed mental or behavioural functioning. By design, the Journal is international and multi-disciplinary in its approach. It serves the interest of all professionals concerned with these topics whether they work in Psychiatric Intensive Care Units (PICUs), Low Secure Unit, Acute In-Patient Wards Challenging Behaviour, Emergency Psychiatry, Intensive Treatments or in other parts of the wider mental health system. All aspects of psychiatric intensive care are covered within the Journal that seeks to encourage informed debate and exchange of opinion and thereby become the essential journal in this field. The content of the Journal includes editorials, original articles, brief reports, reviews, conference reports, news and notices. Preference is given to original research of a high scientific quality. The Journal of Psychiatric Intensive Care is the official publication of NAPICU.

The Journal of Psychiatric Intensive Care would welcome your ideas and suggestions for articles to be published in future issues. The aim of the Journal is to report and publish research from a wide range of styles and furthermore to encourage debate and exchange of opinion from within the field of Psychiatric Intensive and Low Secure Unit care. The Journal hopes that the published issues will provide one such forum where practitioners will be stimulated to put pen to paper in the belief that the audience would like to hear about initiatives in your area of work or share experiences. It is recognized that to find the time to write articles is often difficult and requires some expertise, but please do not let this put you off from contributing. Please refer to the'Guide for Authors' that follows for submission guidelines.

For those of you who would like to write a paper, or have suggestions for relevant articles, and would like guidance, please contact the Editors-in-Chief:

Roland Dix, Editor in Chief, Greyfriars PICU, Wotton Lawn Hospital, Horton Road, Gloucester GL1 3WL or Telephone: 01452 891581/891589 r.dix@napicu.org.uk

Dr. Jim Laidlaw, Deputy Editor, Montpellier Unit, Wottton Lawn Hospital, Horton Road, Gloucester GL1 3WL or Telephone: 01452 891581/891589 j.laidlaw@napicu.org.uk