Mental Elf Blog post. It is now an increasingly well accepted truism that the origins of mental illness often lie in childhood and adolescence. Most psychological and psychiatric problems present for the first time before the age of 18 years, and even for the remainder there is often a link to important early life risk factors, such as child maltreatment and other psychological or economic adversities.
However, acknowledging that, and doing something useful about it to prevent future mental health problems are different things. To be able to successfully intervene early we need to be able to offer interventions that are effective, acceptable to patients/service users and cost-effective. We also need to work out who these interventions should be offered to.
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Depression is a highly prevalent disorder, causing a large burden of disease and substantial economic costs. Web-based self-help interventions seem promising in promoting mental health. Library Services do not currently have access to this journal through this site, but you can request a copy of the article online and we will get a copy to you: http://bit.ly/1Xyazai
Follow-up data from the CoBalT trial poses an interesting clinical question (Wiles et al, 2016). If an individual has apparently treatment-resistant depression and antidepressant ‘usual care’ appears the only option available, is there any possible benefit to providing a moderate length course of CBT alongside the medication, and if so, what are the benefits and how long do they last for? Could benefits be detected not just months, but years after the end of therapy?
Cognitive therapies could be an effective alternative to medication in the treatment of depression, according to NIHR research featured in a new Highlight from the NIHR Dissemination Centre.
The Highlight brings together four studies funded by the NIHR that shed light on when, how and for whom, cognitive therapies might be effective. These are accompanied by blogs and interviews with charities, clinicians, researchers and patients.
Due to an editorial error, the legend for figure 2 in this research paper (BMJ 2015;351:h6127, doi:10.1136/bmj.h6127) is incorrect. The control group is represented by the red dotted line and the intervention group corresponds to the solid blue line in the figure, not the other way round as the legend describes. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details
Cognitive–behavioural therapy (CBT) is effective for treating anxiety disorders and is offered in most mental health services around the world. However, a relatively large number of patients with anxiety disorders do not benefit from CBT, experience relapses or drop out. Reliable predictors of treatment effects are lacking. The aim of this study is to investigate the predictive value of emotion regulation and attentional control for CBT outcome in a routine setting. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details
Amygdala is considered as the core pathogenesis of generalized social anxiety disorder (GSAD). However, it is still unclear whether effective group cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) could modulate the function of amygdala-related network. We aimed to examine the resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) of the amygdala before and after group CBT.
The overall lifetime prevalence of seasonal affective disorder (SAD) ranges as high as 9.7%.1 Light therapy, where bright artificial light is used to replace diminished sunlight, can be an effective non-drug treatment for SAD.2 However, alternative non-drug treatment approaches are also needed. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is an established and effective treatment for depressive disorders.3 Limited research examining CBT adapted specifically for SAD (CBT-SAD) is available. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details
Some guidelines for the treatment of severe depression recommend that antidepressant medication be used instead of cognitive–behavioural therapy (CBT). This is inconsistent with evidence collating individual patient data (IPD) from multiple randomised controlled trials (RCTs).1 IPD meta analyses are one way of increasing statistical power and analysing depressive symptoms of varying severity. A previous IPD meta analysis included only four studies, so may still have lacked statistical power. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
Psychological Assessment28.8 (Aug 2016): 908-916.
The aim of the present study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Competence and Adherence Scale for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CAS-CBT). The CAS-CBT is an 11-item scale developed to measure adherence and competence in cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT) for anxiety disorders in youth. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
ABSTRACT FROM: Weitz ES, Hollon SD, Twisk J, et al. Baseline depression severity as moderator of depression outcomes between cognitive behavioral therapy vs pharmacotherapy: an individual patient data meta-analysis. JAMA Psychiatry 2015;72:1102–9. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
A growing body of evidence suggests that internet-based cognitive behavioural treatments (ICBT) are effective to treat social anxiety disorder (SAD). Whereas the efficacy of clinician-guided ICBT has been established, ICBT in a group format has not yet been systematically investigated. This three-arm RCT compared the efficacy of clinician-guided group ICBT (GT) with clinician guided individual ICBT (IT) and a wait-list (WL). To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.