Functional alternatives to alcohol: desirable effects, but without the harm?

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Matt Field summarises a review led by David Nutt, which presents our current knowledge of how alcohol mediates its effects in the brain, and how we can exploit this knowledge to develop functional safe alternatives to alcohol.

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Mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic: the impact on low and middle income countries

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Anusha Ramji examines a recent review which looks at the mental health impact of the COVID pandemic on different low- and middle-income countries.

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Diagnostic labels: helpful or harmful?

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In her debut blog, Carla Kundert explores a systematic review which looks at how diagnostic labels affect social responses to people with mental illness.

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Mapping the links between leisure activities and health outcomes: the Multilevel Leisure Mechanism Framework

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Alice Potter summarises a narrative review and multi-level theoretical framework of mechanisms of action on how leisure activities affect health.

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ADHD: which medications are most effective and safe?

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In his debut blog, Franco De Crescenzo summarises a narrative review that finds good evidence for the short-term pharmacological treatment of ADHD.

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Mental health apps: using implementation science to understand sustained use

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Bethany Gill summarises a recent narrative review of mental health apps for depression and anxiety, which explores what’s needed to make sure apps are successfully implemented and used sustainably.

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Flu pandemics, schizophrenia and the immune system: could history repeat itself?

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Sameer Jauhar summarises a recent narrative review about the risk of schizophrenia linked to the Spanish Influenza Pandemic over 100 years ago. He relates this work to our current pandemic and considers the possibility of a link between COVID-19 and an increased risk of psychosis.

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Improving care for people with bipolar disorder: meeting unmet needs

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Leela Sathyaputri and Jess Fiedorowicz write their debut elf blog on a narrative review of the recent bipolar disorder literature entitled: “Areas of uncertainties and unmet needs in bipolar disorders: clinical and research perspectives”.

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Open Dialogue: what’s the evidence?

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Sameer Jauhar and colleagues critically assess the evidence for Open Dialogue, presented in a recent narrative review of quantitative and qualitative studies, which finds that most current studies are highly biased and of low quality, and there is an absence of clear data on effectiveness.

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Evidence-based school-based mental health programmes; the extent of their implementation worldwide

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Tamsin Ford considers a literature review of the scope, scale, and dose of the world’s largest school-based mental health programmes, which suggests that evidence-based programmes have reached millions of children worldwide, but mainly in high income countries.

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