David Steele

Profile photo of David Steele
Dave Steele has degrees in Medicine, Applied Psychology and Education. He has previously worked as an assistant for adults with learning disabilities, in psychology research (primarily schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease) and in an adolescent psychiatric. He has a particular interest in mental health stigma, having written blog posts previously on the subject (among myriad others). He has developed psychiatry teaching material on the stigma of mental illness, the diagnosis and management of delirium and measures of wellbeing. He is also interested in schizophrenia, old age psychiatry, liaison psychiatry and the organisation of mental health care. He can be found on Twitter, albeit talking about more varied (and most often nonsense) topics as @hullodave.

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Suicide prevention at suicide hotspots

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David Steele talks us through a systematic review and meta-analysis, which found that commonly used interventions are effective at preventing completed suicides at suicide hotspots.

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Review finds no link between stigma and intention to use mental health services in military personnel

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David Steele reports on a literature review that found no link between anticipated stigma and intention to seek help in military personnel with mental health problems.

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Placebo effect in psychiatry: what do we really know?

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David Steele summarises a review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses, which looks at the mediators and moderators of the placebo effect in psychiatry.

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Lisdexamfetamine for binge-eating disorder

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David Steele summarises a recent randomised controlled trial, which finds that (in the short-term) Lisdexamfetamine successfully decreased binge-eating behaviour in patients with binge-eating disorder. But can we trust this evidence?

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Mental health support for older adults needs to improve

Previous research shows that low education, hypertension, smoking and diabetes may all have causal associations with dementia.

Dave Steele summarises an NIHR funded mixed methods study that concludes we don’t know much about how we should support older adults with mental health problems, except to say that we should be doing better.

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Mental health anti-stigma programs are (broadly) successful

it is vital that such anti-stigma programs are informed by high quality research evidence

Dave Steele reports on a recent meta-analysis of mental health anti-stigma programs, which on the whole are found to be effective at reducing the stigma associated with mental disorders.

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People with mental illness are more likely to be victims of homicide than perpetrators of homicide

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Dave Steele reports on a recent observational case series published in the Lancet Psychiatry, which concludes that patients with mental illness are two and a half times more likely to be victims of homicide than the general population.

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New evidence on antidepressants and suicide risk in children and young people

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Major depressive disorder (MDD) is unfortunately a relatively common condition in children and adolescents.  Depression is estimated to affect 2% of pre-pubertal children and 5-8% of adolescents (Son et al, 2000). As you might expect, depression has a significant negative impact on the development, functioning and risk for suicide in individuals affected, as well as [read the full story…]

People who died by suicide are more likely to have been last discharged from a general hospital

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

Suicide is a significant public health concern in the UK and globally. Recently it was reported that the UK male suicide rate in 2012 was 3.5 times that of women (Siddique, 2014). In 1981, when the data series these reports were based on began, the male suicide rate was 1.9 times that for women. However, overall [read the full story…]

We all know that the Internet can be a dangerous place for people with eating disorders, but can it also help them get better?

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Chances are you’ve heard of the internet. Unless you’re reading this after it’s been transcribed onto some parchment and brought to you by a psychologically-interested crow in which case you’ve got some further research to do. In terms of eating disorders, most people may associate the internet with those ghastly pro-anorexia sites which for reasons [read the full story…]