Youth online discussion forums: how do young people support each other and what do they talk about?

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Masters students from the ICH Child and Adolescent Mental Health course explore a recent qualitative study into how young people use the Kooth online discussion forum for emotional and mental health issues.

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Community singing helps mental health recovery

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As we prepare for our choral music #MentalHealthJukebox on Saturday 27th January, Liesbeth Tip explores a qualitative evaluation of a Norfolk-based community singing project (Sing Your Heart Out) aimed at people with mental health conditions and the general public.

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The Origins of Happiness: can we predict life satisfaction?

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Paul Ramchandani considers the methods, findings and implications of a new book by Andrew E. Clark, Sarah Fleche, Richard Layard, Nattavudh Powdthavee and George Ward, entitled: ‘The Origins of Happiness: The science of well-being over the life course’.

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Can we build cities that aren’t traps for those at risk of mental ill-health?

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Mark Brown blogs about the new Urban Mind study, which looks at how smartphones can measure the impact of nature on mental well-being in real time.

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Mindfulness for young people: to meta-analyse or not to meta-analyse?

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Sarah McDonald and André Tomlin consider another meta-analysis of mindfulness in young people, which finds “small effect sizes on a range of outcomes”. They conclude that we badly need more RCTs that reliably evaluate the effectiveness, safety and cost effectiveness of mindfulness in young people.

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Mental illness and emotional wellbeing: part of the same continuum?

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Lucas Shelemy considers data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study which correlates mental illness with emotional wellbeing in children, and brings back some surprising results.

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Gamification for health and wellbeing

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Sasha Danilina publishes her debut blog about a recent literature review on the effectiveness of gamification applied to health and wellbeing.

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Group body psychotherapy for negative symptoms of schizophrenia

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Raphael Underwood reports on the findings of a recent RCT of group body psychotherapy for negative symptoms of schizophrenia, which finds that body psychotherapy did not have a clinically beneficial effect on reducing emotional withdrawal or improving social functioning.

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Associations between video game use, academic performance and mental health issues in European primary school children

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Pete Etchells posts his debut Mental Elf blog on a recent study, which explored whether video games were associated with mental illness, cognition or social skills in young children.

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