Telemental health: mega-blog on remote mental health care during the pandemic

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In her debut blog, Philippa Clery presents the findings of three studies from the NIHR Mental Health Policy Research Unit, which explore the acceptability and efficacy of telemental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Remote measurement technologies for depression in young people: scalable solution or overplayed potential? #ActiveIngredientsMH

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In her debut blog, Annabel Walsh summarises her #ActiveIngredientsMH project which explored the use of remote measurement technologies for depression in children and young people.

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Can SMS text messages help prevent relapse in schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder?

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A group of UCL Mental Health MSc students summarise a recent pilot study, which explores the acceptability and feasibility of the Texting for Relapse Prevention (T4RP) programme for people with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder.

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How can digital technology help close the mortality gap for people with severe mental illness?

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Lina Gega from the Closing the Gap Network explores a recent review of digital technology for health promotion, which looks at opportunities to address excess mortality in people living with severe mental illness.

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Mobile apps- can then improve dental health?

This RCT looked at whether Mentalization Based Treatment for Adolescents reduced self-harming beahviour

This review of the effectiveness of mobile applications and text messages on oral health included 15 RCTs providing very low quality evidence of reduction is plaque and gingival bleeding.

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Orthodontic patients: Reminders improved oral hygiene and compliance

Recent research has shown how behavioural activation can be delivered via smartphones.

14 RCTs were included in this review of the effect of different reminders on oral hygiene and compliance in orthodontic patients. For most outcomes measured beneficial effects were seen in the patients receiving reminders.

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Can digital communication improve relationships between young people and clinicians?

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Victoria Betton reports on the LYNC study; mixed methods research into timely digital patient-clinician communication in specialist clinical services for young people.

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Do prompts help sustain engagement with digital interventions?

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Sarah Knowles considers the findings of a recent systematic review looking at the effectiveness of prompts to promote engagement with digital interventions.

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SMS text messaging interventions for healthy behaviour change

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Olivia Maynard presents a recent meta-analysis that finds that SMS text interventions have a positive, albeit small, effect on healthy behaviour change.

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SMS texting to quit smoking: a meta-analysis of text messaging interventions for smoking cessation

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Olivia Maynard reviews a new meta-analysis of SMS text messaging for smoking cessation and reveals that this intervention is not as effective as other methods of helping people quit smoking.

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