Psychotherapy for depression in primary care. Better evidence please…

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Andrew Shepherd summarises a recent systematic review of the effectiveness of psychotherapy for depression in primary care, which contains a lot of data but leaves him feeling rather deflated.

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Mini-Cog for dementia diagnosis in the community

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Clarissa Giebel writes her debut Mental Elf blog about a recent Cochrane systematic review of the Mini-Cog for the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease dementia and other dementias within a community setting.

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Searching for the cost of bipolar disorder

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Bipolar disorder is associated with high economic costs…or is it? Chris Sampson reports on a new systematic review, which highlights limitations in our understanding.

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Diagnostic test accuracy of first rank symptoms for schizophrenia

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Raphael Underwood summarises a recently updated Cochrane systematic review, which aimed to systematically evaluate the accuracy of first rank symptoms for diagnosing schizophrenia.

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Salicylate-containing rubefacients for musculoskeletal pain in adults

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Should you use or prescribe rubefacients (creams and lotions that irritate the skin) to relieve musculoskeletal pain? We report on a new Cochrane systematic review that focuses on salicylate-containing rubefacients for acute and chronic musculoskeletal pain.

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Compulsory community treatment results in no significant difference in service use, social functioning or quality of life

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Rebecca Syed appraises and summarises an updated Cochrane review of compulsory community treatment and involuntary outpatient treatment for people with severe mental disorders. The review finds just 3 trials, which show that CCT results in no significant difference in service use, social functioning or quality of life.

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Parent Infant Psychotherapy: a gap in the evidence

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Paul Ramchandani assesses the latest Cochrane review on Parent Infant Psychotherapy for improving parental and infant mental health, which finds little evidence to support the claim that PIP is an evidence-based treatment.

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Is resistance training beneficial for people with hip or knee osteoarthritis?

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Does exercise training improve strength in knee osteoarthritis in the short, medium and long term and what about function? This systematic review gives us an insight.

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