Can a ‘personalised psychosocial toolbox’ help people reduce ‘on-top’ drug use during opioid substitution treatment?

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Vicky Carlisle summarises a promising recent RCT on the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of an adjunctive personalised psychosocial intervention in treatment-resistant maintenance opioid agonist therapy.

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Psychotherapy for adult depression: is it as good as it’s cracked up to be?

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Ellie Gant summarises a meta-analysis that asks: Was Eysenck right after all? A reassessment of the effects of psychotherapy for adult depression. The paper suggests that we seriously overestimate the benefits of psychotherapy by including biased trials in meta-analyses, and that there’s insufficient reliable research to be certain about the effectiveness of problem-solving therapy, interpersonal psychotherapy and behavioural activation.

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Can interventions help to improve social functioning in youth at risk of psychosis?

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Carla McEnery summarises a systematic review and meta-analysis of interventions and social functioning in youth at risk of psychosis.

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Alternatives to medication for children and young people with ADHD

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Joff Jones summarises a recent systematic review, which looks at the evidence for a wide range of non-pharmacological treatments for ADHD. The review finds the strongest evidence for diet, child/parent training and behavioural interventions.

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Youth suicide prevention research needs a shake-up: lives depend on it

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Pooky Knightsmith appraises a systematic review and meta-analysis entitled: “What Works in Youth Suicide Prevention?”. She is disappointed that the review does not answer the question it sets, but sees this as a call to action for better quality research to help save lives.

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A psychological victory for the domestic violence and abuse sector: the PATH trial

Young adults who reported depressive and/or suicidality symptoms in adolescence were significantly more likely to have experienced relationship violence in their romantic relationships

Emma Yapp summarises two new studies out yesterday looking at the PATH intervention (Psychological Advocacy Towards Healing), a CBT-informed psychological intervention delivered by trained domestic violence and abuse (DVA) advocates in specialist services.

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Preventing psychosis: no one intervention is better than the rest

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A group of UCL Mental Health Masters students summarise a recent network meta-analysis that highlights a lack of evidence about specific interventions for preventing psychosis.

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Is third-wave CBT good value?

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Chris Sampson summarises a systematic review on the economic impact of third-wave cognitive behavioural therapies, such as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, extended behavioural activation, dialectical behaviour therapy, and mindfulness-based stress reduction.

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Audiovisual distraction for dental anxiety in children?

Patients in the intervention group were shown a brief informational video before receiving their Internet based intervention, in the hope that this would encourage acceptance of the treatment. 

This review of the effectiveness of audiovisual distraction for reducing dental anxiety in children included 9 trials 6 of which were randomised. The findings suggested that audiovisual distraction was helpful in reducing dental anxiety although all the trials were considered to be at high risk of bias.

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Preventive cognitive therapy when continuing or tapering off antidepressants

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Linda Gask is encouraged by the findings of a new high quality RCT (the DRD study), which compares preventive cognitive therapy while tapering antidepressants versus maintenance antidepressant treatment versus their combination in the prevention of depressive relapse or recurrence.

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