Loneliness and the psychosis continuum: can loneliness be a target for mental health services?

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Laurie Hare-Duke writes his debut elf blog on a recent meta-analysis on loneliness and the psychosis continuum, which finds that loneliness is associated with both positive and negative psychotic symptoms, and is more strongly associated with paranoia than with hallucinations.

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Psychological interventions for grief: a systematic review

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Linda Gask summarise a systematic review which suggests that psychological interventions are efficacious in treating prolonged grief. She concludes that it’s time to pay more attention to the suffering caused by prolonged grief both in research and clinical practice.

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Dry mouth: Are oral health programmes for community dwelling elderly beneficial?

Older people with learning disabilities need opportunities to speak for themselves

This review of whether oral health promotion programmes for community‐dwelling elderly were effective in improving oral health and oral saliva secretion or in decreasing dry mouth included 9 studies most of which came from a single country

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Personality disorder: new position statement from the Royal College of Psychiatrists

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Keir Harding summarises the recently published position statement on personality disorder from the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Readers interested in personality disorder research and services should follow #BIGSPD2020 on Twitter for the British and Irish Group for the Study of Personality Disorder conference on 24-26 March 2020.

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Post-endodontic pain: Is it reduced by occlusal reduction?

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This review of the efficacy of occlusal reduction on the management of post-operative endodontic pain included 6 small RCTs of high risk of bias. The fidings suggested non benefitc from occlusal reduction in the first 48 hours but some benefit at 72 hours. However the findings should be viewed cautiously because of the limited study quality.

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Exploring drop-out rates: new review shows poor retention in trials of apps for depression

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In his debut blog, Tom Steare summarises a systematic review looking at drop out rates in randomised controlled trials of smartphone apps for depression, which finds that depression apps with mood monitoring and human feedback were associated with greater retention of research participants.

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Elective neck dissection for early stage oral cancer?

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This UK multi-centre RCT of elective neck dissection(END) for early stage oral cancer found higher rates for overall and disease free survival in those patients having END.

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Burnout and exhaustion amongst medical students in England

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Nikki Nabavi writes her debut blog on a recent study, which used an online survey to ask medical students from London, Sheffield, Hull and York about their wellbeing, burnout and exhaustion.

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Are high-rise residential buildings implicated in our social wellbeing and mental health?

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Molly Bird summarises and critically analyses a recent systematic review investigating the effects of high-rise buildings on our mental health and social wellbeing.

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Herbal mouthwashes: Are they a useful oral hygiene adjunct?

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This review of the the effect of herbal mouthwashes as an adjuvant to oral hygiene measures in reducing plaque and gingival inflammation in adults included 20 RCTs suggesting that most agents performed better than placebo.

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