To date, ecstasy use has been very much associated with young people and clubbing, but some research has shown that the environments in which it is taken is now beginning to broaden. Lifetime prevalence rates for the drug are around 10% in the US and 8.6% in the UK according to 2010 EMCDDA estimates. The [read the full story…]
Early intervention services for psychosis are aimed at people aged 14-35 who are experiencing a first episode of psychosis or at risk of doing so. The teams that work in this area usually include psychiatrists, psychologists, community psychiatric nurses, social workers and support workers. The NICE schizophrenia guideline recommends that early intervention services are offered [read the full story…]
It’s hard not to picture scenes from the great war films when we consider the mental health of veterans. Images from Apocolypse Now, The Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket and The Hurt Locker are etched onto the public psyche in such a way that it’s sometimes hard to separate fact from fiction. Research has shown [read the full story…]
The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry define Early childhood caries (ECC) as the presence of one or more decayed (cavitated or non-cavitated lesions), missing (due to caries), or filled tooth surfaces in any primary tooth in a child younger than 71 months of age. This aim of this review was twofold to assess the relationship [read the full story…]
This well conducted prospective cohort study looks at the impact that cannabis use can have on the development of the brain over a 20 year period, from the teenage years to middle-age. The research studied 1,037 people from New Zealand who are part of the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development study, which followed participants from [read the full story…]
Events that occur immediately before and after birth (perinatal factors) can often have a significant impact later in life. Research has shown that the risk of many mental health and neurological conditions (schizophrenia, ADHD, depression, autism and eating disorders) increases when complications occur around this time. However, there have been relatively few studies to date [read the full story…]
Polypharmacy is the simultaneous use of two or more drugs to treat a single health condition. Polypharmacy is often used in the treatment of schizophrenia where people are regularly prescribed two or more antipsychotics, as well as antidepressants and/or benzodiazepines, although there is little evidence to prove that these combinations are more effective than monotherapy. [read the full story…]
There is an increasing body of evidence showing that depression and anxiety are linked with other health conditions like cancer and cardiovascular disease. I’ve blogged about the link between depression and stroke, and there are a number of other studies that show an association between psychological distress (the symptoms of depression and anxiety) and mortality, [read the full story…]
Risk assessment tools are widely used in psychiatric hospitals and criminal justice systems to help predict violent behaviour and inform sentencing and release decisions. Yet their predictive accuracy remains uncertain and expert opinion is divided, according to a new systematic review published in the BMJ. An international team of researchers led by Seena Fazel from [read the full story…]
Forty years ago, autism was regularly referred to as childhood schizophrenia and the links between the two conditions have continued to this day. Recent studies have shown that the features of autism spectrum disorders sometimes precede the onset of childhood-onset schizophrenia. This cohort study published by researchers from Cardiff University looks at the relationship between [read the full story…]
