There is a growing pool of research that looks into the impact that exercise can have on depression, but this systematic review and meta-analysis claims to be the first summary of trials into the effects of exercise training on depressive symptoms among patients with a chronic illness. The research team from the University of Alabama [read the full story…]
Adults with a more severe learning disability also have a greater likelihood of having autism according to a new report published by the NHS Information Centre. The report combines data from the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS) 2007 with findings from a new study based on a sample of people with learning disabilities living in [read the full story…]
Cross sectional studies (Mordal et al) tell us that around a third of patients admitted to acute psychiatric wards have illicit drugs detected in their system on admission. A third of patients also report a need for professional help in relation to their substance use. This new systematic review from researchers at York University (Mdege [read the full story…]
Mental health is an area where a lot of evidence-based guidelines now exist. A lack of evidence isn’t always the problem. In some cases, one of the key issues is that clinicians don’t adhere to the guidelines. The reasons for this can be many and varied: because they don’t know about the guidelines, because it’s [read the full story…]
In mental health there has not been a consistent set of definitions that describe what is meant by an inpatient bed. This has led to difficulty in benchmarking and understanding patterns of performance. Understanding how inpatient beds and community services can best be utilised as part of a reshaped pathway, and whether the number of [read the full story…]
The second issue of the NHS Atlas of Variation in Healthcare has been published by the Department of Health as part of the QIPP (Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention) programme. The aim of the Atlas is to reduce unwarranted variation in healthcare, increase value for money and improve quality of care. The idea behind this [read the full story…]
Campaigns in the media that encourage people not to take illicit drugs are now commonplace in the US, but a systematic review of the effectiveness of these interventions has not been conducted until now. A team of researchers from Vancouver in Canada have carried out a systematic review and meta-analysis of 7 randomised controlled trials [read the full story…]
Lithium is a medicine that has been used for over 50 years to treat depression and bipolar disorder. It comes in two forms that are used clinically: lithium carbonate and lithium citrate. A certain level of the drug is needed in the blood stream for it to be effective, but if the level rises too [read the full story…]
Parents who have a child with autism are understandably often very keen to find out the risk of subsequent children also having the condition. Until now, research studies estimated the risk to be between 3-10%, but this evidence was regarded as quite unreliable. This cohort study conducted by researchers in California is the largest prospective [read the full story…]
There is a risk that the new national NHS systems for payment by results are being developed in ways that will clash with the delivery of personalisation, according to a new discussion document published this week by the National Development Team for Inclusion. The report describes how, if the aims of both the payment by [read the full story…]
