Top mental health blogs in 2015

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André Tomlin presents his review of 2015, the year when the Mental Elf came of age. He highlights our top mental health blogs, showcases the #WeCATS and #ElfCampfire activities and explains how the new National Elf Service website can help you engage more with relevant and reliable research.

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Childhood sleep disturbance and risk of psychotic experiences

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Joanne Wallace explores the relationship between nightmares/night terrors at age 12 with psychotic experiences at age 18, which has been confirmed by a recent UK birth cohort study.

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Community treatment orders still don’t work at 36 months: OCTET trial follow up

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Raphael Underwood presents the 3 year follow up of the OCTET trial of community treatment orders for people with psychosis, which finds no significant difference on readmission or disengagement for patients on CTOs compared to those discharged to voluntary status via Section 17 leave.

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Integrated treatment for first episode psychosis: media hype versus reality

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Alex Langford reflects on the media hype surrounding a new RCT of the NAVIGATE intervention; a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, team-based treatment approach for first episode psychosis.

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Employment opportunities for all? Social enterprises and mental health

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Martin Webber considers a Canadian study about social enterprises and employment opportunities for people with mental health problems such as psychosis.

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Early intervention in psychosis: how long is long enough?

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Rachel Brand looks at a recent RCT which investigates the optimal duration of an early intervention in psychosis programme for young people in Hong Kong.

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Can fMRI measuring striatal connectivity help predict response to antipsychotics?

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Samei Huda steps into George Clooney’s shoes to discuss baseline striatal functional connectivity as a predictor of response to antipsychotic drug treatment.

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Common mental health disorders linked with increased risk of violent reoffending in ex-prisoners

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Ian Cummins considers the implications of a new cohort study of convicted prisoners in Sweden, which links psychiatric disorders with violent reoffending.

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Childhood adversity and psychotic symptoms: how much can a growing evidence-base tell us?

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Stephen Wood ponders the reliability of a recent systematic review and meta-analysis, which suggests that childhood adversity is significantly linked to an elevated risk of psychotic symptom persistence.

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Psychodynamic therapy: time for a new approach?

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Mark Smith summarises a recent narrative review about the effectiveness of psychodynamic therapy for depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, somatic disorders and other mental health conditions.

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