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…]
It seems logical that people who work long hours and have a stressful job are more likely to suffer from depression, yet epidemiological studies that have investigated the links between long working hours and depression have reported inconsistent findings. The Whitehall II prospective cohort study followed nearly 3,000 British staff from across 20 civil service [read the full story…]
Suicide is the second most common cause of death in young people worldwide (after accidental death). A wide range of factors contribute to self-harm and suicide, including mental health, poverty, living in a rural setting and being single. There is scant evidence for the treatment of self-harm or suicide with talking treatments or drugs and [read the full story…]
Preterm babies are three times more likely to be admitted to hospital for a mental health problem as an adult than normal term babies, according to a study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry by researchers in the UK and Sweden. About 1 in every 13 children born in the UK are classified as [read the full story…]
NICE guidance recommends that all people who self-harm and are admitted to hospital are given mental health and risk assessment: Everyone who has self-harmed should have a comprehensive assessment of needs and risk; engaging the service user is a prerequisite. – Taken from NICE Self-harm guidance (CG16), Nov 2004 This new prospective cohort study conducted [read the full story…]
There is a clear need for specialist assessment and care for older people who self-harm, according to two papers published in the May issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry. Researchers from the University of Manchester studied 1,177 people over the age of 60 who were admitted to six general hospitals in Oxford, Manchester and Derby [read the full story…]
Mealtimes are important occasions for many people with learning disabilities, offering opportunities for social interaction as well as nourishment, they can also carry significant health risks. There has been a good deal of research on dysphagia. or difficulty in swallowing, but the authors of this study were keen to explore the range of difficulties that [read the full story…]
I’ve blogged before about the association between stroke and depression. It seems logical that people who have strokes are at risk of depression afterwards, but studies have also shown a more concrete relationship between the two conditions. This new meta-analysis conducted by a research team from Soochow University in China looks at prospective studies to [read the full story…]
Driving down suicidal behaviour in young people has long been a major target for public health professionals. This new study from researchers in Denmark will help inform this important work. The case control study used data from the Danish national register (403,431 in total) to assess the risk of suicide attempts after contact with a [read the full story…]
