Compulsory Community Treatment does not reduce readmissions or length of stay in hospital

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John Baker explores a systematic review of compulsory community treatment to reduce readmission to hospital and increase engagement with community care in people with mental illness.

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The chatbot therapist: can we mimic therapy support with a conversational agent? #DigiMHweek

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Andres Fonseca helps us prepare for the #Mindtech2017 chatbot/artificial intelligence debate by summarising a recent trial of a fully automated conversational agent for promoting mental well-being.

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Predictors of adherence to digital interventions for psychosis

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Joe Barnby and Muna Dubad explore a recent systematic review that looks at the potential predictors of adherence to web-based and mobile technologies for people with psychosis.

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Depot antipsychotics: If you pay me, you can keep injecting me

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John Baker looks at the 2-year follow-up results of a cluster RCT on the effectiveness of financial incentives to improve adherence to maintenance treatment with depot antipsychotics.

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Internet based interventions for depression: how can we increase acceptance?

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Raluca Lucacel summarises an RCT of Internet based interventions for depression, which finds that a brief informational video shown to people with depression before they receive their treatment, helps to increase their acceptance of the Internet based intervention.

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We don’t know how to improve medicine adherence, says new Cochrane review

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Helge Hasselmann reports on a new Cochrane systematic review of interventions for enhancing medication adherence, which finds insufficient evidence to draw any conclusions. The full health benefits of medicines will not be realised until better interventions and better studies are conducted in this area.

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The Internet Therapist: adherence to Internet CBT compared to face to face CBT

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Andrés Fonseca appraises a recent meta-analysis of adherence to Internet CBT and face-to-face cognitive behavioural therapy for depression.

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Long-acting antipsychotics cost-effective for treatment of schizophrenia, but evidence inconsistent

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Here at Mental Elf HQ we’re expanding our skill set to include economics. Understanding the best way to value health and health care, and improving health outcomes with budget constraints in mind, are the key pastimes of economics elves. We hope to bring you the latest economic evidence in the field of mental health and to [read the full story…]

Pharmacists can significantly improve patient adherence to antidepressants, according to new systematic review

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Observational studies (Vergouwen et al) have reported alarmingly high discontinuation rates for patients taking antidepressant medication (28% at 1 month and 44-52% at 3 months). One group of health professionals who can potentially have a major impact on this issue are pharmacists. This new systematic review conducted by researchers from Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, set [read the full story…]