Reducing loneliness and social isolation in migrants and ethnic minorities: new insights on interventions

Hannah Cocker and Ross Nedoma summarise a recent review which explores loneliness and social isolation in migrants and ethnic minorities.

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Eating disorders: impact on health-related quality of life and healthcare costs

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Gemma Shields’ debut blog about a systematic review of the health-related quality of life and economic burdens of anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder.

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Economic impact of youth mental health services in the UK

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Alastair Canaway and Chris Sampson look at a new PSSRU report on youth mental health services in the UK, and how they affect health, education and employment.

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High cost placements for people with learning disabilities and complex and challenging needs

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People with learning disabilities who have complex and challenging needs may find themselves placed in specialist services, sometimes distant from family and local support networks, often at high cost to the commissioners.

Here Ruth Northway looks at the findings of a survey of commissioning teams in south east England reporting on the nature and costs of such placements.

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Searching for the cost of bipolar disorder

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Bipolar disorder is associated with high economic costs…or is it? Chris Sampson reports on a new systematic review, which highlights limitations in our understanding.

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Are treatments for bipolar disorder cost-effective?

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Chris Sampson reports on a recent systematic review and critical appraisal of economic evaluations in bipolar disorder. He finds that there’s a pressing need for new studies, especially discrete event simulations.

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CBT in primary care is cost-effective for treatment-resistant depression

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Elf economist Chris Sampson reports on the economic evaluation of the CoBalT RCT, which finds that CBT is cost-effective for treatment resistant depression in primary care.

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New study estimates that UK smokers with mental illness cost the economy £2.34 billion

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This new study estimates that there are approximately 3 million smokers in the UK with mental illness, and the direct cost of treatment to the NHS in this population was £719 million in 2010. The total smoking-attributable costs for this group are estimated at £2.34 billion.

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CBT is more cost-effective than SSRI alone as treatment for panic disorder

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In addition to its impact on quality of life, panic disorder can have a number of costly consequences such as lost productivity – particularly if also associated with agoraphobia. Cost-effectiveness is therefore an important consideration in choosing the optimal treatment for panic disorder, which might improve value via the cost side of the equation. A recent [read the full story…]

Severity of challenging behaviour for young people in transition did not correlate with cost of care

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Young people with learning disabilities with behaviour that presents a challenge to services will usually have significant and complex needs which present additional challenges for planning transition from support from children’s to adult services. The authors of this paper carried out a survey of all the young people, between 16 and 18 years of age [read the full story…]