What influences mental health professionals to stigmatise people with schizophrenia?

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Charlotte Huggett explores a recent systematic review on schizophrenia stigma in mental health professionals and associated factors.

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Home treatment by crisis resolution teams can prevent hospital admission, according to Swiss research

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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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Antipsychotics versus CBT in first episode psychosis: some answers, more questions

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Joe Pierre summarises two recently published and widely reported RCTs, which suggest that antipsychotic medication might not offer an advantage over psychotherapy in broadly-defined first episode psychosis.

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Walk this way: can a health coaching intervention increase physical activity in people with severe mental illness?

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Gordon Johnston and Michel Syrett prepare for the #HealthSMI event on 24th June by blogging about a recent pilot RCT of a health coaching intervention (Walk This Way) to reduce sedentary behaviour and increase physical activity in people with serious mental illness.

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Sex and schizophrenia: what determines sexual interest and confidence?

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In her debut blog, Beccy White summarises a secondary analysis which explored predictors of sexual interest amongst older adults with schizophrenia.

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Antipsychotics for schizophrenia: do they provide a longer, healthier life?

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Paul Heron from the Closing the Gap Network writes his debut blog about a 20‐year cohort study of physical morbidity and mortality in relationship to antipsychotic treatment in a huge group of people with schizophrenia in Finland.

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Psychological resilience to suicidal thoughts and behaviours in people with schizophrenia

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Emily Hielscher reviews a recent qualitative study that examines factors that contribute to psychological resilience to suicidal thoughts and behaviours in people with schizophrenia or psychosis.

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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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Towards a symptom-based diagnosis of psychotic spectrum disorders?

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Stefanie Sturm critically analyses a recent paper that suggests a symptom-based continuum of psychosis explains cognitive and real-world functional deficits better than traditional diagnoses.

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Risperidone and aripiprazole: genotype, metabolism and dosage

CYP2D6 genotyping before starting treatment might be valuable in clinical practice for individualising risperidone and aripiprazole treatment.

Dolly Sud writes her debut elf blog on a recent retrospective analysis, which compares dose changes of risperidone and aripiprazole with patients’ individual genotype.

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