Psychotropic medication during pregnancy: new umbrella review finds no convincing evidence of adverse health outcomes for the baby

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Flo Martin summarises a recent umbrella review which finds that we still have limited knowledge about the safety of psychotropic drug use in pregnancy.

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Cognition and heterogeneity in first-episode psychosis before antipsychotic treatment

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Ana Veic looks at an updated systematic review which suggests that patients with psychosis display cognitive difficulties very early in the disease process, and concludes this variation in cognitive function should prompt individual clinical assessments to optimise care.

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Antipsychotics and risk of violence and suicide in people diagnosed with personality disorders

Newer antipsychotics are not necessarily superior to older drugs.

A group of MSc students from UCL summarise a study examining the links between antipsychotics, risk of violent crimes and suicidal behaviour in people diagnosed with a ‘personality disorder’.

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Predicting treatment-resistant psychosis using routine clinical measures

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Lorna Staines summarises a recent study on predicting treatment-resistant psychosis, which suggests that future risk prediction efforts should seek to consider routinely collected data.

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Optimal antipsychotic dosing in first-episode schizophrenia: how much is too little, too much, or just right?

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Joe Pierre reports on the first published study exploring the relationship between antipsychotic dose and risk of relapse in first episode schizophrenia, which suggests that standard antipsychotic dosing is best for relapse prevention.

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Uncertainties about stopping or reducing antipsychotics as shared by families

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Amelia Talbot considers a qualitative study that explores family members’ perspectives on reducing or discontinuing antipsychotic medication.

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Do different groups of people with schizophrenia respond differently to different antipsychotics?

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Murtada Alsaif considers a systematic review and meta-analysis published in the Lancet Psychiatry exploring the response of different subgroups of patients with schizophrenia to different antipsychotic drugs.

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To stay on antipsychotics or not to stay on antipsychotics? A longstanding question with an update

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Joe Pierre considers a recent network meta-analysis on continuing, reducing, switching, or stopping antipsychotics in individuals with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders who are clinically stable.

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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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Choosing between antipsychotics to reduce the risk of breast cancer in women with schizophrenia

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Peter Knapp and Suzy Ker review a recent study from Finland, which suggests that women with schizophrenia who take prolactin-increasing antipsychotics for at least five years, have an increased risk of developing breast cancer.

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