schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a long-term mental health condition that causes a range of different psychological symptoms. These include: hallucinations (hearing or seeing things that do not exist), delusions (unusual beliefs that are not based on reality and often contradict the evidence), muddled thoughts based on the hallucinations or delusions, and changes in behaviour. Doctors describe schizophrenia as a psychotic illness. This means that sometimes a person may not be able to distinguish their own thoughts and ideas from reality.

Our schizophrenia Blogs

Does staying in hospital longer make you better?

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De-institutionalisation, the advent of community care and development of psychotropic medicines are implicated in the reduction in hospital bed numbers and mean length of stay. There remains a huge variance in length of stay and outcomes across the UK and beyond (NHS Confederation, 2011). Figures on length of stay and service configuration are difficult to [read the full story…]

What impact do guidelines actually have on patient outcomes for people with schizophrenia?

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Alex Langford
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Using research findings to improve care in mental health should be easy. Notice an understudied area, do a study on it, write a guideline based on your results and watch mental health professionals modify their practice accordingly. Hooray for science. But in reality, this process is convoluted and murky. Though we’re fairly good at churning out [read the full story…]

Missing heritability: the final piece?

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Alex Jarram
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Uncovering the genetic component to common disease has been challenging. Whilst we now have more reliable heritability estimates (the proportion of susceptibility to disease which is accounted for by genetics), we are far from finding all genetic variants contributing to heritability. That is to say that if a disease is 80% heritable, we may have [read the full story…]

Physical health monitoring in serious mental illness is a priority in psychiatry, but where is the evidence that it works?

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Amy Green
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It is widely acknowledged that individuals with serious mental illnesses (SMI) such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and severe depression have increased rates of mortality, due to poor physical health. As well as reducing quality of life and function and decreasing life expectancy, physical illness can worsen these mental illnesses. The reasons for this include lifestyle [read the full story…]

Psychosis and schizophrenia in adults: updated NICE guidance for 2014

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Andrew Shepherd
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While the organisation’s name may change frequently, currently National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), its role remains constant – to provide clear published guidance on the role of treatment options within the NHS. The publication of new NICE guidance represents a significant event as clinical recommendations shape the nature of provided care nationally [read the full story…]

Pilot study suggests that CBT may be a viable alternative to antipsychotics for people with schizophrenia, or does it?

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People with schizophrenia stop taking their antipsychotics for a wide range of reasons (e.g. debilitating side effects or a belief that they will not help them), but when they do health professionals often find it extremely difficult to care for these patients, because the alternative treatment options available to them are very limited. Of course, [read the full story…]

Cochrane review finds that haloperidol is an effective antipsychotic, but its side effects can be problematic

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Marcus Munafo
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Schizophrenia is a serious disorder characterised by delusions (including paranoid beliefs and hallucinations) and other symptoms such as blunted affect and reduced motivation. While relatively uncommon (lifetime prevalence is less than 1%), it is associated with serious social impairment (e.g., unemployment, homelessness), which in turn can result in physical health problems. As a result, the [read the full story…]

Cochrane review finds no evidence to support the use of user held records for patients with severe mental illness

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Rupert Thurston
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The reviewers can't have been too pleased with the paucity of research in this field

The use of care plans and Wellness Recovery Action Plans (WRAP®) (Cook et al, 2009) within mental health is commonplace. In Wales, care planning is covered by legislation in the form of the Mental Health Measure (Welsh Government website, 2013). The care plans are designed to be developed and agreed in a collaborative way with input [read the full story…]

Long term maintenance treatment with antipsychotics: a cautionary note from recent research

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Andrew Shepherd
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The support of individuals with experience of psychosis is complex and relies on a combination of psychopharmacology (antipsychotic drugs), psychological therapies and social interventions. Antipsychotics will often be the first line treatment offered, with the intention of reducing psychotic symptom burden. Following the resolution of immediate symptoms the role of antipsychotics becomes less clear; should [read the full story…]

Meta-analysis finds that pituitary volume is not affected in people with first episode psychosis or schizophrenia

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Stephen Wood
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* Declaration; I have published articles with two of the authors of this article, including on this topic, and know most of them professionally One influential model of the onset of psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia is the stress-vulnerability model, first put forward by Zubin and Spring in 1977. This model proposes that people at [read the full story…]