Meg Fluharty

Meg Fluharty
Meg is a PhD student in the Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group (TARG) at the University of Bristol. She has been at Bristol since graduating from St Andrews with an MRes in Psychology and a BSc in Psychology with Biology.

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Later menopause linked with lower risk of depression

The menopause is about more than just hot flushes, night sweats and mood swings!

Meg Fluharty summarises a recent systematic review and meta-analysis that looks at the association of age at menopause and duration of reproductive period with depression after menopause.

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Smoking and chronic mental illness: what’s the best way to quit or cut down?

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Meg Fluharty considers the findings of a BMJ State of the Art review, which looks at the evidence for smoking cessation in people with chronic mental illness such as schizophrenia, unipolar depression, bipolar depression, anxiety disorders and PTSD.

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Drug-using offenders with co-occurring mental illness

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Meg Fluharty summarises a recently updated Cochrane systematic review about interventions for drug-using offenders with co-occurring mental illness.

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Antidepressants during pregnancy and risk of persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn

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Meg Fluharty examines the findings of a recent study, which looks at the risk of persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn (PPHN) when mothers take antidepressants during pregnancy.

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Promoting smoking cessation in people with schizophrenia

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Meg Fluharty summarises a recent clinical overview of smoking cessation in people with severe mental illness, which provides useful practical advice to clinicians who are trying to help service users with schizophrenia, psychosis and other conditions to quit smoking

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Financial incentives for smoking cessation in pregnancy

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Meg Fluharty highlights a recent study suggesting that financial incentives may be beneficial in helping pregnant women quit smoking. This recent study investigated the effectiveness of shopping vouchers in addition to NHS Stop Smoking Services to aid quit attempts in pregnant women.

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Helping people with depression return to work

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Meg Fluharty reports on a new Cochrane review of interventions to improve return to work in depressed people. The review finds moderate quality evidence for a range of work-directed and clinical interventions that can help people with depression return to work.

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One new drug a week: club drugs and novel psychoactive substances

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Meg Fluharty summarises a recent report from the Royal College of Psychiatrists and explores why novel psychoactive substances and club drugs need a different response from UK treatment providers.

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Exercise for the prevention and treatment of antenatal depression

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Meg Fluharty summarises a recent systematic review looking at exercise for antenatal depression. The review finds preliminary evidence to suggest that exercise may be effective in reducing depression during pregnancy, but the quality of included trials is low to moderate.

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New study estimates that UK smokers with mental illness cost the economy £2.34 billion

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This new study estimates that there are approximately 3 million smokers in the UK with mental illness, and the direct cost of treatment to the NHS in this population was £719 million in 2010. The total smoking-attributable costs for this group are estimated at £2.34 billion.

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