Switching antipsychotics in schizophrenia: the OPTiMiSE RCT

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Tracey Roberts summarises a recent paper that reviews the existing literature concerned with switching antipsychotics in patients with schizophrenia, and goes on to present the ongoing OPTiMiSE RCT in this field, which is due to be published in 2016.

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CBT for school refusal

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Lucy Willetts publishes her debut blog on a Campbell systematic review, which focuses on psychosocial interventions for school refusal with primary and secondary school students.

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Psychosocial therapy effective in reducing self-harm, suicide and all-cause death

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Elly O’Brien summarises a large Danish cohort study, which investigates the short-term and long-term effects of psychosocial therapy for people after deliberate self-harm.

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CBT based strategies, physiotherapy and low back pain

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Can CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) based treatment strategies be delivered by physiotherapists and other healthcare professionals? Heather Gray reports on a systematic review.

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Acamprosate and oral naltrexone may improve consumption related outcomes for people with alcohol use disorders

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A new systematic review suggests that, when used alongside psychosocial interventions, medication can result in better alcohol consumption outcomes for people with drinking problems.

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Reality orientation and skills training may improve cognition in dementia, but don’t jump to conclusions

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Well this is an interesting one. The abstract of a recent review by Carrion et al concludes that cognitive psychosocial interventions such as reality orientation and skills training improve cognition (Carrion, 2013). Woohoo, I thought; fantastic!  And then I read the review… Methods The authors searched the usual bibliographic databases for randomised and non-randomised controlled trials, [read the full story…]

Mood management can improve smoking cessation in patients with past and current depression

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There is a high rate of co-morbidity between depression and smoking; rates of smoking are approximately double in those with depression compared with the general population. In addition, smokers with depression tend to have higher rates of nicotine dependence, suffer greater negative affect during abstinence/withdrawal, are more likely to fail in quit attempts, and are [read the full story…]

Fashionable? Measurable? Doable? Measuring wellbeing for people with psychosis

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Over the past decade the term ‘wellbeing’ has made an increasing appearance in health and social care policy, with the Office for National Statistics undertaking the first UK national wellbeing survey in 2012. Although a lot of work has been done, there still doesn’t seem to be an agreed definition of what wellbeing is or [read the full story…]

Insufficient evidence to refute or support the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions for patients with head and neck cancer

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Worldwide there are more than 500,000 new cases of head and neck cancer annually, making it the 5th most common cancer.  A diagnosis of head and neck cancer has a significant psychosocial impact and interventions have been developed to help patients cope with the emotional and social impact of the condition. The aim of this [read the full story…]

Can psychosocial treatments be used effectively to treat disruptive behaviour problems in young children?

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Disruptive behaviour problems (DPB) such as conduct problems or being oppositional and defiant affect a large proportion of young children. For example, one in eleven pre-schoolers may show these behaviours to a degree that would warrant a formal diagnosis of disruptive behaviour disorder. Because these early ‘externalising’ behavioural problems are stable across time, and eventually [read the full story…]