Aslihan Baser summarises a systematic review and meta-analysis investigating the risk for developing anxiety disorders in children whose parents experience mood disorders.
[read the full story...]Serotonin hypothesis of depression: balance (and imbalance) is in the eye of the beholder
The 2022 review by Moncrieff et al on the serotonin theory of depression received a great deal of media coverage. In this blog, Rebecca Wilkinson and Sameer Jauhar shed fresh light on this research and what it means for mental health science and practice.
[read the full story...]Mental health care and the benefits system: linked data provides opportunities for new research
Becky Appleton explores the potential of new data linkage opportunities for understanding the intersection between mental health service use and receipt of benefits in a South London service user population.
[read the full story...]Is cognitive behavioural therapy the best we’ve got for depression?
Camilla Babbage and Maria Loades summarise the largest meta-analysis to date on the effectiveness of CBT for depression.
[read the full story...]Youth mental health interventions: umbrella review presents efficacy and acceptability data
In his debut blog, Nick Meader tackles a huge umbrella review of youth mental health interventions, which presents the efficacy and acceptability of 72 different approaches to help children and young people.
[read the full story...]Ketamine “shows promise” as an anti-suicidal ideation agent, but will this promise ever be realised?
Rosalind McAlpine and Karel Kieslich summarise a recent systematic review which focuses on the rapid anti-suicidal ideation effect of ketamine.
[read the full story...]Exposure to air pollution increases mental health service use, according to new UK study
Wajeeha Raza and Peter Coventry review a retrospective cohort study exploring the association between air pollution exposure and mental health service use among individuals with first presentations of psychotic and mood disorders.
[read the full story...]Lamotrigine in the maintenance treatment of bipolar disorder
Michael Ostacher critically appraises and summarises a recent Cochrane systematic review, which presents the latest best evidence on the efficacy of lamotrigine in the maintenance treatment of bipolar disorder.
[read the full story...]Mental health: at what cost?
In their debut Mental Elf blog, Martin Knapp and Gloria Wong summarise a systematic review of cost-of-illness studies, which explores the distribution of the costs between different mental health and neurodevelopmental conditions.
[read the full story...]Home treatment by crisis resolution teams can prevent hospital admission, according to Swiss research
Emmeline Lagunes Cordoba and Magdalena Skowronska review a recent Swiss RCT, which found that crisis resolution teams led to fewer hospital days per patient, but did not prevent hospital admission entirely.
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