The economic cost of OCD in the UK: who pays?

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Chris Sampson evaluates a cost-of-illness analysis on the economic burden of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in the UK.

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Risk factors for depression relapse while on long-term maintenance antidepressant treatment

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In her debut blog, Asha Ladwa discusses a secondary analysis of data from the ANTLER trial, which investigated the clinical factors associated with relapse in primary care patients on long-term maintenance antidepressants.

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Antidepressant withdrawal: recommendations for support from people with lived experience

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Hannah Bowers summarises a study exploring the need for antidepressant withdrawal support, from 708 survey respondents with lived experience.

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The experience of treatment-resistant depression: we need to rethink treatment for people who do not respond to antidepressants

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Amelia Talbot summarises a qualitative meta-synthesis exploring people’s experiences of living with ‘treatment-resistant’ depression.

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Serotonin hypothesis of depression: balance (and imbalance) is in the eye of the beholder

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The 2022 review by Moncrieff et al on the serotonin theory of depression received a great deal of media coverage. In this blog, Rebecca Wilkinson and Sameer Jauhar shed fresh light on this research and what it means for mental health science and practice.

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Antidepressants, cognition, and emotional blunting: what’s the evidence?

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Angharad de Cates reviews a recent Danish trial, which finds that escitalopram reduced participants’ reinforcement sensitivity compared to those on placebo. This lower reinforcement sensitivity may be similar to the emotional blunting effect often reported by patients during SSRI treatment.

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Antidepressant withdrawal or depression relapse? International guidelines on antidepressant discontinuation are unclear

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Adele Framer summarises a systematic review which finds that major guidelines on antidepressant discontinuation only give clinicians vague guidance on distinguishing withdrawal from relapse.

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Burning mouth syndrome treatments – network meta-analysis

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This review of all treatments for the relief of pain associated with burning mouth syndrome (BMS) as compared with no intervention or placebo included 44 RCTs. There was moderate certainty evidence that clonazepam is likely to reduce the pain of BMS compared with placebo.

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Youth mental health interventions: umbrella review presents efficacy and acceptability data

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In his debut blog, Nick Meader tackles a huge umbrella review of youth mental health interventions, which presents the efficacy and acceptability of 72 different approaches to help children and young people.

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Maintenance or discontinuation of antidepressants for depression? Findings from the ANTLER trial

For every 6 people stopping their medication there was one additional relapse compared to those who maintained their antidepressant treatment, suggesting that stopping medication has an increased risk of relapse.

Raphael Rifkin-Zybutz and Sameer Jauhar summarise the recently published ANTLER trial, which explores whether antidepressant maintenance can reduce the risk of relapse in depression.

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