Depression in teenagers is a significant problem, with serious and potentially fatal consequences. Estimates of how many teenagers have depression at any one time vary between countries, but overall about 4-5% of mid to late teens worldwide are thought to experience clinical depression every year (Thapar et al, 2012). Much of the current knowledge of [read the full story…]
On 14th May 2010, when Kenneth Clarke returned to the Ministry of Justice, the prison population in England and Wales was 85,009. When he had previously been Home Secretary in 1992-93, the average prison population had been 44,628 (Prison Briefing 2010). This represents a 90% increase in a period when crime rates were generally falling. The [read the full story…]
Depression is a common problem in adolescence, with statistics showing that around 20% of young people will go through at least one clinically depressive episode by the age of 18 years. Given the significant impairment and deleterious consequences of depression, sustained efforts have been dedicated to preventive and early intervention. In a recent large trial [read the full story…]
Clinicians and mental health researchers have long recognised that there is a link between traumatic experiences in childhood and symptoms of psychosis or non-clinical psychotic experiences presenting in adolescence or adulthood. One type of traumatic experience is the experience of abuse, whether physical, emotional or social in nature. When it comes to bullying, any or [read the full story…]
The prevalence of depression goes up sharply in mid-adolescence and it’s estimated that by age 19 up to 20% of people will have suffered from at least one episode of clinical depression. So it makes sense that prevention programmes should be targeted at young people in schools, and indeed, published research has shown that classroom-based [read the full story…]
Prison staff need to record and share more information about violence and intimidation to improve prisoner safety, said Nigel Newcomen, the new Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO), publishing a report into the impact of intimidation, violence and bullying on those who take their own lives in prison. The report has been produced as a result [read the full story…]
Researchers at King’s College London have published an interesting paper in the American Journal of Psychiatry, which uses data from the Environmental Risk Longitudinal Twin Study; a cohort study of children in England and Wales born in 1994 and 1995. The research question they posed was whether trauma during childhood such as maltreatment, bullying or [read the full story…]
A birth cohort study carried out by researchers in Finland has discovered a predictive association between being a bully in childhood and becoming a mother in adolescence. The Finnish 1981 birth cohort study included 2,867 Finnish girls at baseline in 1989. Information, both on the main exposure and outcome, was available for 2,507 girls. Both bullies and victims [read the full story…]
