Social participation interventions for mental health: do they work?

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In this blog, Ian Cummins looks at a study, which seeks to examine the effectiveness of particular forms of intervention that focus on social participation for adults with mental health problems.

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The scars of modern slavery: trafficked people with severe mental illness

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Yesterday was #AntiSlaveryDay, so today we are publishing a blog by Mina Fazel who considers the findings of an historical cohort study in the Lancet Psychiatry, which explores the characteristics of trafficked people with severe mental illness.

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Caring for people with severe mental illness: poor research means that carers get a raw deal

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Caroline Struthers is frustrated by the lack of high quality research identified by this recent review, which looks at interventions to improve the experience and well-being of those caring for people with severe mental illness.

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Smoking cessation for people with severe mental illness

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Sally Adams appraises and summarises the SCIMITAR pilot RCT, which investigates smoking cessation for people with severe mental ill health. The paper presents a highly promising bespoke intervention for smokers with bipolar disorder, psychosis or schizophrenia.

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Promoting smoking cessation in people with schizophrenia

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Meg Fluharty summarises a recent clinical overview of smoking cessation in people with severe mental illness, which provides useful practical advice to clinicians who are trying to help service users with schizophrenia, psychosis and other conditions to quit smoking

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Peer-led self-management for mental health: impressive programme, not so sure about the research

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Lucy Simons and Chris Sampson appraise a recent evaluation of peer-led self-management training for people with severe mental illness.

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Poor oral health and severe mental illness: what are the links?

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Helge Hasselmann summarises a recent systematic review of poor oral health and severe mental illness (SMI), which found that people with SMI were 2.8 times more likely to have lost all their teeth, and had more missing, decayed or filled teeth.

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People with severe mental illness are more likely to be victims of violent and non-violent crime

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Vishal Bhavsar summarises a recent cross-sectional study of violent and non-violent crime against adults with severe mental illness, which finds that service users were five times more likely to be victims of assault, and three times more likely to be victims of household acquisitive crime.

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Promoting safer sex in people with severe mental illness

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Caroline Tomes summarises a recent systematic review which finds that behavioural interventions can result in short-term increases in safer sex in people with severe mental illness.

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Exercise for severe mental illness: new review finds few benefits

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This new systematic review concludes that exercise programmes can lead to an improvement in exercise activity, but have no significant effect on mental health symptoms or body weight in people with severe mental illness.

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