NICE Guidelines state that around three quarters of people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia experience a chronic illness: with recurrent episodes of remission and relapse. One way that chronic physical health conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease, are managed is by using early warning signs (EWS) training and this prevention strategy is now often [read the full story…]
If you work in the NHS, public health or social care, you’ve probably heard of QIPP (Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention), but have you heard of the QIPP collection? It’s a website run by NICE that contains: QIPP case studies – examples of how health and social care staff are improving quality and productivity across [read the full story…]
The prevalence of depression goes up sharply in mid-adolescence and it’s estimated that by age 19 up to 20% of people will have suffered from at least one episode of clinical depression. So it makes sense that prevention programmes should be targeted at young people in schools, and indeed, published research has shown that classroom-based [read the full story…]
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is a group training approach that aims to prevent relapse and recurrence of depression. It combines mindfulness techniques with cognitive therapy and research shows that it is effective at reducing depressive symptoms as well as preventing relapse. The NICE depression guideline recommends that MBCT is offered to people who have experienced [read the full story…]
Anyone who has ever been depressed knows that there is always a chance that the condition may return. We know that the more episodes of depression an individual has, the more likely they are to have further episodes, so it’s vital that we do all that we can to prevent relapse after depression. This feeling was [read the full story…]
There is an enormous body of research concerned with schizophrenia and the use of antipsychotic drugs. A quick search on PubMed for ‘schizophrenia, antipsychotics and randomised controlled trials’ brings back nearly 2,000 articles! The authors of a new systematic review and meta analysis published today in the Lancet, suggest that one area that has not [read the full story…]
This new systematic review compares how effective first-generation antipsychotics (FGAs) and second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs) are at preventing relapse in patients with schizophrenia. The authors carried out a meta-analysis of 23 randomised controlled trials that lasted for ≥6 months and compared FGAs with SGAs in schizophrenia. The outcomes they studied were: Study defined relapse Relapse at 3, [read the full story…]
Many people with bipolar disorder have a range of therapies available to them nowadays, including mood stabilisers (or anticonvulsants), antipsychotics and various psychosocial interventions (including CBT, psychoeducation and family therapy). A research team from the University of Barcelona have published a meta-analysis that investigates the efficacy of drug maintenance treatments for bipolar disorder. They searched from [read the full story…]
Schizophrenia can be a severe and chronic illness characterised by lack of insight and poor compliance with treatment. Psychoeducational approaches have been developed to increase patients’ knowledge of, and insight into, their illness and its treatment. It is supposed that this increased knowledge and insight will enable people with schizophrenia to cope in a more [read the full story…]
