Ioana Cristea critically reviews a recent meta-analysis of Internet-based CBT for patients with chronic somatic conditions. She concludes that the review authors are offering an overly positive interpretation of their results, and that we need more high quality studies before we can recommend online cognitive behaviour therapy for this population.
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Helen Bould summarises a meta-analysis of interventions for caregivers of someone with an eating disorder, which highlights a lack of high quality primary research.
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Helge Hasselmann highlights a recent systematic review of anti-inflammatory drugs for depression, which concludes that NSAIDs, in particular celecoxib, decreases depressive symptoms without increased risk of adverse effects. However, the meta-analysis has a number of draw-backs, which make the study findings far from convincing.
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Should all molecular research institutes looking at neurodegenerative diseases be replaced by parks, playgrounds and cycle paths? Mark Horowitz highlights a recent systematic review of modifiable risk factors associated with cognition and dementia, which suggests that from a public health perspective, there may be some sense in this idea.
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For his ninth Mental Elf blog, Mark Smith reports on a Cochrane systematic review of the effectiveness of short term psychodynamic therapies on common mental health disorders.
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Ioana Cristea reviews a recent systematic review and meta-analysis of collaborative care for depression, looking to identify factors predicting improvements. The study finds that collaborative care successfully improves both patient outcomes and the process of care for depression.
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Joe Judge appraises a recent systematic review and meta-analysis looking at the duration of untreated psychosis as a predictor of long-term outcomes in schizophrenia.
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Dave Steele reports on a recent meta-analysis of mental health anti-stigma programs, which on the whole are found to be effective at reducing the stigma associated with mental disorders.
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Nikki Newhouse summarises a recent US health technology assessment of antidepressants for depression in pregnancy and the postpartum period, which concludes that the evidence remains inconclusive about the benefits and harms of antidepressants for depression in pregnancy.
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Laurence Palfreyman summarises 3 recent Cochrane reviews, which investigate high-potency versus low-potency first-generation antipsychotic drugs for schizophrenia. The reviews find little difference in efficacy between the high-potency antipsychotics Trifluoperazine, Haloperidol, Fluphenazine, and low-potency typical antipsychotics.
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