Psychiatric Advance Directives: more effective when facilitated by peer workers, according to French RCT

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Rob Allison considers a French randomised controlled trial, which provides support for the use of peer worker–facilitated psychiatric advance directives to prevent compulsory rehospitalisation in people with severe mental illness.

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Is High Intensity Interval Training a HIIT for psychiatric inpatients?

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Suzy Ker and Garry Tew consider a qualitative study exploring patient, carer and staff perspectives on implementing High Intensity Interval Training for service users in inpatient mental health settings.

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What’s the link between neurodevelopmental or mental disorders and school absence or exclusion?

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Chris Fielding summarises a Welsh cohort study which finds that neurodevelopmental and mental disorders are linked to school absenteeism and exclusion.

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Prediction of psychosis and bipolar disorder in children and adolescents: the role of CAMHS

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Matthew Broome considers a Finnish study on the potential of predicting psychosis and bipolar disorder in young people who have previously used child and adolescent mental health services.

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The caring dyad: how patients and their informal carers experience severe mental illness and cardiometabolic disease

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Lydia Poole considers the caring dyad (the relationship experience of the patient and their informal carer) and the realities of living with cardiometabolic risk, metabolic syndrome and severe mental illness.

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How to improve oral health in people with severe mental illness #MindYourSmile

Start tweeting your ideas to #MindYourSmile now!

Easter Joury summarises a recent systematic review on improving oral health in people with severe mental illness.

We are having a tweet chat at 8-9pm BST on Monday 11th July to discuss how best to support oral health in people with severe mental illness. You can join in by following the #MindYourSmile hashtag on Twitter.

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Diagnostic labels: helpful or harmful?

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In her debut blog, Carla Kundert explores a systematic review which looks at how diagnostic labels affect social responses to people with mental illness.

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Lamotrigine in the maintenance treatment of bipolar disorder

Lamotrigine, an anticonvulsant drug, is licensed in the United States for the maintenance treatment of bipolar I disorder and in the UK to prevent depressive episodes in bipolar disorder. Hashimoto and colleagues (2021) performed a Cochrane Intervention Review to explore whether lamotrigine is effective and safe compared to the most established maintenance treatment, lithium, and placebo.

Michael Ostacher critically appraises and summarises a recent Cochrane systematic review, which presents the latest best evidence on the efficacy of lamotrigine in the maintenance treatment of bipolar disorder.

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Mental health stigma and online social support for bipolar disorder: what can we learn from Twitter?

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Charlotte Walker explores an online ethnography study that explores how Twitter users discuss mental illness, particularly bipolar disorder, and in what context; focusing specifically on the areas of stigma and social support.

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Prison and mental illness: the unmet needs associated with reincarceration

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Danny Whiting reviews a recent Canadian prison study which finds that schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and homelessness are some of the factors significantly associated with reincarceration.

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