Self Help Plus for refugees: we need effective, low-intensity and scalable interventions

41.2% of the refugees screened were found to have symptoms of psychological distress. The risk varied between sexes, nationalities and was suggested to be associated with reduced integration and accentuated by less favourable post migration conditions.

Alexis Low considers a meta-analysis which evaluates Self-Help Plus, a promising WHO intervention that could be scaled up to address the mental health needs of refugees and asylum seekers.

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Improving access to CBT for people with anxiety: a review of solutions?

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In her debut blog, Elli Bouliou reflects on a scoping review exploring ways to improve access to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for people with anxiety disorders.

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Psychological interventions for youth depression and anxiety can improve emotion regulation skills #ActiveIngredientsMH

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In her debut blog, Ariadna Albajara Saenz summarises a recent active ingredients review, which finds that psychological interventions for youth anxiety & depression can improve emotion regulation skills.

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Psychological interventions effective for improving mental health and sleep following complex trauma

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In her debut blog, Delia Ciobotaru explores a network meta-analysis which finds that psychological treatments are effective in reducing PTSD symptoms experienced by people with complex trauma.

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STrAtegies for RelaTives (START): long-lasting effect on the wellbeing of family carers of dementia patients

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A group of UCL Mental Health MSc students summarise a recent RCT assessing the clinical and cost-effectiveness over 6 years of the START intervention for family carers of people with dementia.

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The Lancet Psychiatry Commission on psychological treatments #SeeingFurther

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Ioana Cristea highlights some of the key ideas from the recently published Lancet Psychiatry Commission on psychological treatments research in tomorrow’s science. She also raises a number of objections to the 50-page report, which we hope will generate some much needed discussion on this topic.

Look out for our #SeeingFurther podcast with the authors of the Commission and a Twitter chat at 12:30pm GMT on Monday 19th March.

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Psychological interventions to improve oral health

This meta-analysis claims to be the first evaluating mindfulness-based interventions in primary care.

This review of psychological interventions to improve oral health identified 9 RCTs reported in 11 papers. A small statistically significant improvement in plaque index was noted but the quality of the available evidence is low. More higher quality studies are needed.

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Orthodontic appliances: may help break thumb-sucking habits

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This Cochrane review included 6 small studies at high risk of bias and found that orthodontic appliances or psychological intervention seems to be effective to help children stop sucking that does not have a feeding purpose.

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