Keeping you up to date with reliable mental health research, policy & guidance
Clinical depression is unfortunately relatively common in adolescence with a prevalence of about 5%. The rates of suicide per 100,000 are around 12.0 for females and 14.2 for males aged 15-24 years with suicidality (thoughts or uncompleted attempts at suicide) likely to be higher. Research and clinical experience suggests issues relating to suicide and depression [read the full story...]
The NICE guideline on the longer-term care and treatment of self-harm was published in November 2011 and contains research published up until January 2011. A group of experts including psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers has compiled an evidence update looking at the high quality research that has been published in the last two years (from [read the full story...]
Last September I blogged about a cohort study in the Lancet that highlighted the links between self-harm and poor physical health. This same dataset (drawn from over 30,000 patients from 6 hospitals in Oxford, Manchester and Derby from 2000-7) has now spawned a longitudinal study published in the European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry journal. This [read the full story...]
Talking treatments are a key component of the therapy offered to people with borderline personality disorder and there are now a number of studies that point to the importance of these interventions for this complex and hard to manage condition. A new randomised controlled trial conducted by a research team from the Centre for Addiction [read the full story...]
Self-destructive behaviour is often brought on by mental illness, poverty and other life problems. As individuals spiral down they sometimes come into contact with health and social care services. This may be a primary care visit, emergency treatment in hospital or simple cries for help to friends and family. Hindsight would show us that a [read the full story...]
A great deal of time and money has been spent on improving the diagnosis and management of depression and self-harm in primary care. The evidence tells us that collaborative care and case management can be effective approaches, which is all well and good, but these complex interventions are not always feasible. This new cluster randomised [read the full story...]
Published yesterday in the Lancet, the Multicentre Study of Self-harm in England is a large (30,950 patients) cohort study of people presenting to hospital emergency departments in Oxford, Manchester and Derby, with self-poisoning or self-injury during 2000-2007. We know that people who self-harm have an increased risk of dying early, but this study tries to [read the full story...]
Suicide is the second most common cause of death in young people worldwide (after accidental death). A wide range of factors contribute to self-harm and suicide, including mental health, poverty, living in a rural setting and being single. There is scant evidence for the treatment of self-harm or suicide with talking treatments or drugs and [read the full story...]
NICE guidance recommends that all people who self-harm and are admitted to hospital are given mental health and risk assessment: Everyone who has self-harmed should have a comprehensive assessment of needs and risk; engaging the service user is a prerequisite. – Taken from NICE Self-harm guidance (CG16), Nov 2004 This new prospective cohort study conducted [read the full story...]
There is a clear need for specialist assessment and care for older people who self-harm, according to two papers published in the May issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry. Researchers from the University of Manchester studied 1,177 people over the age of 60 who were admitted to six general hospitals in Oxford, Manchester and Derby [read the full story...]
