Andre Tomlin

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André Tomlin is an Information Scientist with 20 years experience working in evidence-based healthcare. He's worked in the NHS, for Oxford University and since 2002 as Managing Director of Minervation Ltd, a consultancy company who do clever digital stuff for charities, universities and the public sector. Most recently André has been the driving force behind the Mental Elf and the National Elf Service; an innovative digital platform that helps professionals keep up to date with simple, clear and engaging summaries of evidence-based research. André is a Trustee at the Centre for Mental Health and an Honorary Research Fellow at University College London Division of Psychiatry. He lives in Bristol, surrounded by dogs, elflings and lots of woodland!

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Home based collaborative care reduces depression in elderly people with epilepsy

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The PEARLS Program is a team-based approach, involving counsellors, psychiatrists and medical providers, designed to reduce depressive symptoms and improve quality of life in adults with epilepsy.  It was developed by a team at the University of Washington and has been studied through two randomised controlled trials, the second of which measures the long-term benefits of [read the full story…]

Physical illness may be the trigger for one in ten suicides

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Some of the risk factors for suicide are well known.  Research shows that mental illness is the most significant risk factor and we also know that gender plays a big part (men are at greater risk).  However, some of the other potential risk factors are less well study, such as the impact that serious physical [read the full story…]

Major new meta-analysis shows that antipsychotics are significantly more effective than mood stabilisers for treating acute mania

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Researchers from Oxford and Verona have published a major new meta-analysis in the Lancet, which measures the effectiveness of all anti-manic drugs. The review team searched and found 68 randomised controlled trials from 1980-2010 (a total of 16,073 patients).  The study includes a range of antipsychotics and mood stabilisers used at a therapeutic dose range [read the full story…]

Mentoring may help pregnant women and mothers who experience intimate partner violence

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We know very little about how to increase the safety and wellbeing of mothers who experience intimate partner violence. A good deal of the research in this field focuses on treatments delivered by health professionals, but this cluster randomised trial from Melbourne Australia looked at the impact that non-professional mentor support can have in reducing [read the full story…]

Can vitamin D supplementation improve mental well-being?

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There are a number of epidemiological studies that suggest a clear relationship between levels of vitamin D in the body and mental well being, but to date there has not been a large scale randomised controlled trial that proves that vitamin D supplementation (serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels) can improve mental health. An Australian research team [read the full story…]

The best alcohol screening instrument to use in emergency departments

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Restraint is used widely in inpatient mental health settings both in the UK and internationally, but is linked with multiple adverse outcomes.

Screening for alcohol misuse in the emergency department needs to be done quickly and accurately, so it makes sense to find the best instrument for this purpose. This systematic review of diagnostic cohort studies searched a range of databases and journals and also conducted citation searching because of a lack of relevant literature found by [read the full story…]

Is the PANSS (Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale) instrument for schizophrenia being used correctly?

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The PANSS (Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale) is one of the most important rating instruments for patients with schizophrenia. Kay’s original 1987 article on PANSS has been cited more than 4,000 times making it one of the most frequently cited schizophrenia articles on PubMed. Despite its common use there still seems to be profound uncertainty [read the full story…]

Psychotherapies are as good as antidepressants for treating most types of adult depression

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Researchers from the VU University in Amsterdam and the EMGO Institute have published a nice summary of the effects of psychotherapies for adult depression. The study summarises a series of meta-analyses that they have carried out, to measure the strength of the evidence for the different types of psychotherapy in treating different types of depression. Here’s what [read the full story…]

Sertraline and mirtazapine do more harm than good for people with dementia and depression

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Depression is common in patients with dementia and antidepressants are widely prescribed for this population although the evidence remains limited. This randomised controlled trial conducted by researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry in London and published in the Lancet, explored the safety and efficacy of two widely-used drugs (sertraline and mirtazapine) in patients with dementia and [read the full story…]

Problem-solving therapy beats supportive therapy at reducing disability in old people with depression and executive dysfunction

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Older people who suffer from depression and executive dysfunction experience significant levels of disability and often don’t respond well to conventional drug treatments. This randomised controlled trial conducted by researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College in New York State, attempted to find out if problem-solving therapy is better than supportive therapy for reducing disability in older [read the full story…]