Tackling mental-health-related stigma: a narrative review of anti-stigma interventions

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Suzanne Dash considers the findings of a recent narrative review in The Lancet, which brought together the evidence for effective interventions to reduce mental-health-related stigma and discrimination.

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Population screening for dementia

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Rosalyn Nelson reports on a recent systematic review about population screening for dementia, which highlights the negative attitudes of patients, carers and health care professionals towards screening. She asks: what are the risks of ignoring diagnosis?

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Shared decision making in antipsychotic prescribing: the perspective of psychiatrists

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Shared decision making is now commonplace, but will this approach ever be fully embraced in relation to antipsychotic prescribing? Liz Hughes reports on a recent qualitative study of consultant psychiatrists’ experiences that sheds some light on the issue.

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Corpulence and compassion: weight bias among professionals treating eating disorders

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We elves are kept continually up to date with equality and diversity training, having had many centuries to build a society that rises above such petty differences, but we remain curious about the many aspects of stigma and its effects on humans. New avenues for research are constantly opening up, with studies continuing to highlight how [read the full story…]

General hospital staff often have negative attitudes towards people who self harm: new systematic review

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Researchers from Oxford University’s Centre for Suicide Research have conducted a systematic review of qualitative and quantitative studies that explore health service staff attitudes to people who self-harm. It’s obvious to say that staff attitudes are going to have a big impact on the care of patients, but this research sought to review the nature [read the full story…]

Regional variation in health professional attitudes to antipsychotic polypharmacy for schizophrenia

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This cross-sectional study used a postal questionnaire to find out if there are regional differences in the attitudes of doctors and nurses to antipsychotic polypharmacy and the use of clinical guidelines. A survey was sent to 2 pairs of treatment settings in Denmark, characterized by low and high prevalence of antipsychotic polypharmacy, respectively. The questionnaire [read the full story…]

Barriers to good management of depression in primary care: the views of GPs and nurses

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A research team from the Institute of Psychiatry in London have conducted a systematic review of qualitative and quantitative studies of General Practitioners’ and Practice Nurses’ attitudes to managing depression in primary care. They found 7 qualitative and 10 quantitative studies, none of which looked at depressed people with co-morbid physical illness. Two contrasting understandings of depression were [read the full story…]