Josephine Neale reports on a recent cohort study that finds less than half of UK prescriptions for antipsychotics are issued for main licensed conditions (e.g. psychosis or bipolar disorder). The research provides a reminder about the dangers of prescribing antipsychotics to people with dementia.
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Liz Hughes reviews two recent Lancet papers about the health needs of people who are homeless and the best ways to meet these needs.
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Andrew Jones summarises a large Finnish population-based cohort study, which finds that childhood adversities strongly predict the use of psychotropic drugs (such as antidepressants and antipsychotics) in adulthood.
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Sally Adams summarises a new BMJ systematic review and meta-analysis of working hours and alcohol use, which finds a link between longer working hours and risky alcohol consumption.
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Helen Bould summarises a new systematic review that finds a lack of evidence for the digital treatment or prevention of eating disorders. With so many new websites and apps popping up every week, why is there no reliable evidence of positive effect?
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Olivia Maynard reports on a recent Cochrane review that investigates talking therapies for reducing alcohol consumption in illicit drug users. The reviewers found no differences in the effectiveness of different psychotherapies (motivational interviewing, brief interventions, CBT) and insufficient evidence to draw any meaningful conclusions.
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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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Helge Hasselmann reports on a new Cochrane systematic review of interventions for enhancing medication adherence, which finds insufficient evidence to draw any conclusions. The full health benefits of medicines will not be realised until better interventions and better studies are conducted in this area.
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Mark Horowitz summarises the new WHO and UCL Institute of Health Equity (Michael Marmot) report and research paper on social determinants of mental health. He concludes that it’s time to focus on the root causes of mental distress, namely poverty, unemployment, poor education and social isolation.
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Caroline Tomes highlights a new study that explores suicide reporting in the arts sections of British newspapers. The study concludes that there is poor compliance with suicide reporting guidelines in British newspapers, but further research is needed before we can generalise these findings.
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