Our colleagues at the Mental Elf found this large cohort study from California which explored the risk of autism in children of families with one child already diagnosed with the condition. Previous research estimated the risk to be between 3-10%, but this evidence was always regarded as unreliable. This study looked siblings of children [read the full story…]
Parents who have a child with autism are understandably often very keen to find out the risk of subsequent children also having the condition. Until now, research studies estimated the risk to be between 3-10%, but this evidence was regarded as quite unreliable. This cohort study conducted by researchers in California is the largest prospective [read the full story…]
Bipolar disorder is a complex health condition and the diagnosis of bipolar depression is a fairly contentious topic. This is because depression occurs in bipolar disorder alongside a wide range of symptoms of mood elevation. Some patients have depressive episodes as well as severely elevated mood during the course of their illness, whereas other patients [read the full story…]
We know that mental health problems often go hand in hand with other physical health complaints. Older adults with cancer and mental health issues are especially vulnerable as they tend to suffer from behavioural, socio-economic and biological changes that act as barriers to effective healthcare. This retrospective cohort study conducted by researchers from the University [read the full story…]
People with serious mental illness are still living 15-20 years less than the rest of the population, according to a study from the Nordic countries. The study, published in the December issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry, shows that the life expectancy gap has remained largely unchanged over the last 20 years, despite changes [read the full story…]
Researchers from Australia have published the first population based study to chart the incidence of self harm during the transition from late adolescence through to adulthood. They recruited a stratified random sample of 1,943 teenagers from 44 schools across Victoria over a 16 year period (1992-2008). Participants were given questionnaires and telephone interviews and followed [read the full story…]
Medically unexplained symptoms are physical symptoms that have no currently known physical pathological cause. They are common (accounting for as many as 1 in 5 of new primary care consultations) and can impair function and cause significant distress to patients. This longitudinal cohort study conducted by researchers from London set out to understand these presentations [read the full story…]
People with an interest in the absolute risk of suicide, and how suicide relates to other mental health conditions, will want to read more about this new Danish cohort study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry. This prospective study involved 176,347 people who were followed up for as long as 36 years from the [read the full story…]
We know from epidemiological studies that people with schizophrenia are 2-3 times more likely to smoke than the rest of the population. We also know that schizophrenia is associated with a higher risk of coronary heart disease. This retrospective cohort study carried out by researchers from the University of Maryland set out to explore the impact [read the full story…]
The aim of this study was to establish the relative safety and balance of risks for antidepressant treatment in older people. The cohort study included 60,746 patients aged 65 years and over diagnosed with depression. The study was based in 570 general practices in the UK supplying data to the QResearch database. The study objectives [read the full story…]
