On 14th May 2010, when Kenneth Clarke returned to the Ministry of Justice, the prison population in England and Wales was 85,009. When he had previously been Home Secretary in 1992-93, the average prison population had been 44,628 (Prison Briefing 2010). This represents a 90% increase in a period when crime rates were generally falling. The [read the full story…]
Yesterday we looked at a review of the effectiveness of oral examination to detect potentially malignant disorders and mouth cancer today we are looking the latest version of the Cochrane review on screening programmes for the detection and prevention of oral cancer. The overall aim of this review was to assess the effectiveness of current [read the full story…]
The lines between physical health and mental health are blurred in lots of ways, and one example is the fact that people with chronic physical conditions are also more likely to suffer from depression. As well as adding to their burden of illness, there’s also some evidence that those patients with comorbid depression have worse [read the full story…]
Behaviour within an intimate relationship which causes psychological, physical or sexual harm to either party is known as intimate partner violence (IPV). This violence is perpetrated by both men and women, but significant injuries are more commonly sustained by women. Consequently, IPV is a major public health concern as it contributes majorly to mortality in [read the full story…]
Alcohol misuse is recognised as one of the major health care issues in the US. Specifically, alcohol misuse is ranked third in causes of preventable deaths (after tobacco and obesity) affecting 30% of the population. Alcohol dependence has 4% prevalence in the US, but hazardous drinking patterns are believed to be evident in 21% of [read the full story…]
As part of its excellent ‘Too Much Medicine’ series, the British Medical Journal last week published an important analysis of the current direction of travel in the field of dementia care. The article is hard to ignore, written as it is by highly authoritative academics from the UK and Australia, including Professor Carol Brayne, an [read the full story…]
Research in the field of mental health has suggested associations between risky sexual behaviour and common psychiatric conditions, with higher than prevalence rates of HIV than found in the national average, risk of sexual coercion and high rates of relationship breakdown. The authors of this paper suggest that there are encouraging signs of positive attitudes [read the full story…]
While depression is the leading cause of disability for both males and females, the burden of depression is 50% higher for females. In fact, depression is the leading cause of disease burden for women in both high-income and low- and middle-income countries (WHO, 2008). Research has shown that women with unidentified and untreated maternal depression [read the full story…]
This article originally appeared on the Binscombe Doctor blog on 14 Dec 2012 and is reproduced with kind permission from Dr Martin Brunet. There’s an old joke about a Pastor and an Evangelist going on a bear hunt. Once they have arrived at their log cabin hunting lodge the Pastor starts to unpack their supplies [read the full story…]
Postnatal (or postpartum) depression is moderate to severe depression that affects women just after they have given birth. It’s a relatively common illness, affecting 7-15% of childbearing women. Suffering from depression in the first few weeks of motherhood can have a significant impact, not just on the health of the mother, but also on her [read the full story…]
