The state of personality disorder services in England #bigspd17

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Keir Harding publishes his debut elf blog on a recent national survey of personality disorder services, which finds continued exclusion, variability of practice and inconsistencies in the availability of services across England.

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Have the EAGLES landed? Safety of varenicline, bupropion and NRT in smokers with and without mental illnesses

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Paul Christiansen presents the results of the EAGLES RCT into the neuropsychiatric safety and efficacy of varenicline, bupropion, and nicotine patches in smokers with and without psychiatric disorders.

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Is it bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder?

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Murtada Alsaif considers the challenges facing psychiatrists in diagnosing bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder. He reports on a recent qualitative study that explores the practical experience of psychiatrists and nurses and concludes that clinical diagnostic practice cannot reliably distinguish the two conditions.

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Personality disorder: time for more attention and debate

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Andrew Shepherd summarises a recent series of papers in The Lancet which look at the latest research on personality disorders. This includes evidence on classification, prevalence, diagnosis, treatment and the experience of personality disorder across the life course.

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Stigma in bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder: time for a cultural shift.

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Andrew Shepherd summarises a critical realist analysis that looks at experiences of stigma in people with bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder. He concludes that a profound social change in public and professional attitudes is necessary before mental health stigma can be effectively eradicated.

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Are treatments for borderline personality disorder cost-effective?

Dialectical behaviour therapy was specifically developed to help people with borderline personality disorders

Our resident Elf Economist, Chris Sampson, reports on a new systematic review of economic evaluations for borderline personality disorder. Are any cost-effective?

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Mentalization based treatment for borderline personality disorder: a pragmatic trial but with statistical uncertainty

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Andrew Shepherd summarises a matched control study that explores the effectiveness of day hospital Mentalization-Based Treatment for patients with severe Borderline Personality Disorder.

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Meta-review presents the risks of all-cause and suicide mortality in mental disorders

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This recent and well-conducted meta-review concludes that the impact on mortality and suicide of mental disorders is substantial, and probably poorly appreciated as a public health problem. Raphael Underwood’s blog summarises the data for all-cause and suicide mortality in mental disorders.

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Which psychological therapies work best for borderline personality disorder?

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This systematic review of psychological therapies for borderline personality disorder (BPD), conducted in Spain, takes an interesting approach to reviewing the literature. Unfortunately, there appear to have been challenges in translating the systematic review from Spanish and the text can be difficult to follow at times. This is a real shame as it is an [read the full story…]

Borderline personality disorder improves with dialectical behaviour therapy and general psychiatric management

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Talking treatments are a key component of the therapy offered to people with borderline personality disorder and there are now a number of studies that point to the importance of these interventions for this complex and hard to manage condition. A new randomised controlled trial conducted by a research team from the Centre for Addiction [read the full story…]