Chronic diseases and depression often go hand in hand. There is a growing evidence-base that shows how exercise can help reduce depressive symptoms in people with chronic illness and it’s encouraging to see a steady stream of primary research being published in this area. A new ancillary study published in JAMA examines the effect that [read the full story…]
The reduced life expectancy (15-20 years less) often faced by many people with schizophrenia is frequently a result of cardiovascular disease. Lifestyle choices (smoking, lack of exercise and poor diet) can increase the risk of these diseases, but people who take antipsychotic drugs often have the additional problem of weight gain that is caused by [read the full story…]
A year ago this week I blogged about a study in the British Journal of Psychiatry that showed the dramatically reduced life expectancy of people with severe mental illness, who on average live 15-20 years less than the rest of the population. Twelve months on and a new study published in the same journal paints an equally [read the full story…]
The NHS Confederation have published a new report on liaison psychiatry services that has been written by the Centre for Mental Health. Liaison psychiatry is concerned with the interface between medicine and psychiatry and typically involves patients with medical conditions that also result in psychiatric or behavioural symptoms, such as delirium. The study set out [read the full story…]
The excellent Time to Change initiative is quick to point out that people with mental health problems are more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators. However, it remains the case that certain mental health conditions are more frequently associated with antisocial behaviour and violence than others. Personality disorders (PD) are one [read the full story…]
NICE have published public health guidance and a new care pathway to help people of South Asian origin who are living in England to stop using traditional South Asian varieties of smokeless tobacco. These publications are focused on people with ancestral links to Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan or Sri Lanka and smokeless tobacco products such [read the full story…]
This brief new guidance will be of interest if you are involved in delivering or planning peer support for people with long term conditions. It’s the result of a research project carried out in Scotland during 2010-11, which reported that: Peer support activity for people with long term conditions across Scotland had a positive impact [read the full story…]
Published yesterday in the Lancet, the Multicentre Study of Self-harm in England is a large (30,950 patients) cohort study of people presenting to hospital emergency departments in Oxford, Manchester and Derby, with self-poisoning or self-injury during 2000-2007. We know that people who self-harm have an increased risk of dying early, but this study tries to [read the full story…]
Comorbidities are common in mental health and the relationship between physical and mental health conditions appears to be bidirectional. Having a chronic physical condition like diabetes can increase your risk of depression (by as much as 3 times). Having an enduring mental health problem such as psychosis can take 15-20 years off your life. In [read the full story…]
Young people with mental health problems often suffer from comorbidity, i.e. a complex mix of different conditions like depression, anxiety and conduct problems. Clinical research very often investigates specific treatments (e.g. CBT) for single disorders (e.g. depression) and guidelines and manuals are then developed for clinicians to help them treat these individual conditions. The problem [read the full story…]
