Cyberbullying: comparatively rare, not especially damaging or pernicious

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Shirley Reynolds reports on a recent population-based cross-sectional study that surveyed 1 in 5 of all 15 year olds in England, to ask them about bullying, cyberbullying and adolescent well-being.

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#MQScienceMeeting: transforming lives with better mental health research

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André Tomlin looks back at the #MQScienceMeeting Mental Health Science Meeting that took place in London on 2-3 Feb 2017.

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Childhood adversity and bipolar disorder

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Jasmin Wertz presents the findings of a recent systematic review and meta-analysis that explores the relationship between childhood adversity and bipolar disorder.

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Trauma and psychotic symptoms: clear association, but do we really understand why?

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#UCLJournalClub students worked collaboratively on this blog, which appraises and summarises a recent cross sectional study looking at the psychological mechanisms that mediate effects between trauma and psychotic symptoms.

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Childhood bullying and mental illness in young adulthood

The risk of psychotic experiences was found to be increased for both self-reported bullies and victims at age 8 and 10.

Jasmin Wertz appraises a recent Finnish cohort study, which explores how different forms of children’s bullying involvement are associated with mental illness and use of specialised psychiatric services in young adulthood.

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Cyberbullying and mental health in young people

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Elly O’Brien summarises a recent US survey of adolescents, which investigates the relationship between cyberbullying, mental health and substance use problems, and the moderating role of family dinners.

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Bullying and cyberbullying increase the risk of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in adolescents

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Bullying is just not good for you.  Here on Mental Elf, we’ve already picked some great examples of studies demonstrating this.  André blogged about how bullied children are more likely to develop psychosis, and how bullies are at higher risk for teen pregnancy, and not so long ago, I told you how Wolke et al demonstrated that [read the full story…]

Longer adolescent duration of worry and low mood predicts problems in adulthood: suggests early intervention important

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Adolescent mental health problems are the cause of deep distress to hundreds of thousands of teenagers in the UK. Young Minds estimates that 850,000 children and young people in the UK have a diagnosed mental health problem, and many more may be suffering in silence.  Statistics on how likely it is that an adolescent with [read the full story…]

Teenagers who have been concussed are three times more likely to have depression, although no one knows why

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Depression in teenagers is a significant problem, with serious and potentially fatal consequences. Estimates of how many teenagers have depression at any one time vary between countries, but overall about 4-5% of mid to late teens worldwide are thought to experience clinical depression every year (Thapar et al, 2012). Much of the current knowledge of [read the full story…]

Screening for mental health problems in the adult prison population

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On 14th May 2010, when Kenneth Clarke returned to the Ministry of Justice, the prison population in England and Wales was 85,009. When he had previously been Home Secretary in 1992-93, the average prison population had been 44,628 (Prison Briefing 2010). This represents a 90% increase in a period when crime rates were generally falling. The [read the full story…]