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.
[read the full story...]
Gerry Bennison explores a study on support planning by user led organisations and wonders about the implications for personalisation and equality of access to social care and support.
[read the full story...]
This well conducted trial found that there was no statistical difference if orthodontic brackets were bonded with or without the use of a primer after 12 months observation.
[read the full story...]
Mary Larkin looks at research on carer mental health and asks us to consider the wider implications for social care policy and carer support.
[read the full story...]
Although the research base is small, it does strongly suggest that the attitudes of support workers can be key influencers of outcomes for people with learning disabilities and this would seem to be an entirely reasonable assumption. Here, Louise Phillips looks at a study which set out to not only explore the attitudes of a number of support workers in one service, but also to consider whether existing attitude measurement scales capture the range of attitudes expressed.
[read the full story...]
Claire Mokrysz reports on two RCTs in JAMA that find no superiority over control for brief interventions for substance misuse in primary care. A finding that casts some doubt on interventions such as motivational interviewing for unhealthy drug use in primary care patients.
[read the full story...]
Adults with Williams syndrome are said to have a highly social personality, but can find it difficult to form and maintain relationships.
Here we report on a recent observational study which compared parent and self-report measures of social behaviour to observations of real life social situations.
[read the full story...]
This new Cochrane review identified 11 RCTs and suggests that for those undergoing orthognathic surgery, long term antibiotic prophylaxis decreased the risk of surgical site infection compared with short-term regimens.
[read the full story...]
In her first blog for the Social Care Elf, Caroline Struthers looks at research on cognitive impairment and shared decision making for people with dementia and offers useful tips on understanding research reviews. She also shares some of her own personal experience of the research topic and reminds us about reliable evidence having real-life applications.
[read the full story...]
The paper reports the finding of a small trial of three type of orthodontic retention 5 years or more post retention and finds no difference. Previously the authors reported their findings after two years of retention again showing no differences.
[read the full story...]
