Mood Matters: mood instability is common and associated with poor outcomes

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Farhana Mann summarises an observational study of mood instability in people with mental illness, which explores its relationship with days spent in hospital, frequency of admissions, the likelihood of being sectioned and the chance of being prescribed antipsychotics and mood stabilisers.

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Community development, networking and neighbourhood change

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Jenny Fisher takes on an Australian study about community development and how umbrella bodies work for networking between organisations and neighbourhoods. She considers the implications of the findings for the UK refers to some other helpful research on the topic.

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Woodland walks and your ‘Elf

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Kirsten Lawson dons her walking boots and reports on the national Walks for Health (WfH) programme, which has been investigated in an observational study looking at the mental, emotional and social well-being of people who participate in woodland walks.

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It’s not what you say: Examining the non-verbal behaviours of psychiatrists and patients

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Chris Pell considers the findings of a recent observational study of non-verbal behaviour and communication in meetings of psychiatrists and patients with schizophrenia.

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People with mental illness are more likely to be victims of homicide than perpetrators of homicide

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Dave Steele reports on a recent observational case series published in the Lancet Psychiatry, which concludes that patients with mental illness are two and a half times more likely to be victims of homicide than the general population.

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Observational study: antidepressant suicidality warnings may be counterproductive

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Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) have long been suspected to – paradoxically- increase suicidal behaviour in adolescent and pediatric patients. Consequently, national watchdogs started issuing black label warnings for all SSRIs to educate physicians and patients about associated risks. While clearly curbing the amount of antidepressant prescriptions, concerns have been voiced that this step has [read the full story…]

Missing you Mum: mothers who bring their babies to emergency departments often have undetected post-natal depression

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While depression is the leading cause of disability for both males and females, the burden of depression is 50% higher for females. In fact, depression is the leading cause of disease burden for women in both high-income and low- and middle-income countries (WHO, 2008). Research has shown that women with unidentified and untreated maternal depression [read the full story…]

Relationships identified between emotions, attributions and interpersonal style of staff supporting people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour

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There have been a number of studies testing attributions of support staff and their impact on helping behaviour when supporting people with learning disabilities anf challenging behaviour. We posted about one such study in January this year which looked at the impact of using vignettes to measure helping behaviour and used Weiner’s theory to explain [read the full story…]

Image based hyperlink menus on websites improved understanding of site users with learning disabilities

When we think of community involvement and participation in the 21st century, it is impossible not to consider the importance of access to information technology and the use  of social media as key elements of this. The Rix Centre  for example has worked over a number of years to improve access for people with learning [read the full story…]

Multi-sensory environment reduced stereotyped behaviour for young people with learning disabilities

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Multi-sensory environments or snoezelen rooms are used in a variety of services supporting people with learning disabilities although there has until recently been a paucity of critical evaluation of their effectiveness. Although there are a number of examples in the literature of a wide range of positive outcomes when Snoezelen and  non-Snoezelen environments are contrasted, there [read the full story…]