This meta-analysis evaluated the relationship between overweight/obesity and depressive disorders in children and adolescents. To read the full article, choose Open Athens “Institutional Login” and search for “Midlands Partnership”.
The identified relationship between parental mood disorders and offspring anxiety disorders provides valuable insights that mental health practitioners can integrate into their practice. Understanding these risk factors and underlying mechanisms aids mental health professionals in tailoring treatments and interventions according to the family background and specific needs of their clients.
The current study investigated the association between paternal postnatal depressive symptoms and parenting behaviours. Open access article - no login required.
This item explores adolescents’ use of social media to manage stress and loneliness at a time of restricted social contacts due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To read the full article, choose Open Athens “Institutional Login” and search for “Midlands Partnership”.
Concludes that there is little uptake of psychological interventions for depression. Strategies currently in development that could change this include single session interventions and task sharing which involves using lay counsellors to deliver the intervention. Digital interventions could improve access to treatment and have shown some positive outcomes.
In this blog I will give a brief overview of this field, and what can be done to further improve the effects of these treatments. I have also presented a more extensive overview in the webinar that you can watch below.
Prevention of new depressive disorders is very much needed because current treatments can only reduce the disease burden of depression to a limited extent.
Research has shown that preventive interventions are effective, especially in indicated prevention, but also selective prevention. However, the impact of these interventions is limited because the uptake is low.
A new generation of randomized community trials are needed to examine suites of innovative preventive interventions.
Several useful points for clinicians emerge from this paper. The first-hand experiences compiled here reveal some common experiences among people living with depression which are not reflected in diagnostic criteria or checklists for lay people. While sleep, weight and appetite disturbances are noted in the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as indicative of depression, this paper suggests that the somatic nature of the depressive experience is more pronounced than this. Experiences such as aches and pains, a sense of heaviness, and a body that lacks physical energy may be important markers of depression, and it is therefore unhelpful to view the mind and body as separate. The importance of fatigue has also been stressed by adolescents experiencing depression
This qualitative systematic review shows that antidepressants might not always help depression. For this patient population, it may be important for health professionals to work with patients to explore other treatments for managing their depression. Treatment could include cognitive behavioural therapy, which was shown in a systematic review to be an effective intervention for TRD at short-term, mid-term, and long-term follow-up (Li et al., 2018).
The authors of the study conclude that “KAT offers clinically meaningful improvements and demonstrated a desirable safety and risk mitigation profile”. Ongoing ketamine-based medication sessions enhance therapeutic benefits by preventing the 90% relapse rate that is often seen in single-infusion ketamine-based treatments (Kryst et al., 2020).
Hull et al. (2022) take this standpoint to reiterate the use of dissociative and psychedelic compounds for reducing important symptoms of common mental health disorders such as reducing suicidal ideation and behaviour. This could be viewed as an exaggeration, especially since the mechanism of dissociation is still relatively unknown in terms of how it reduces anxiety and depression symptoms (Liu et al., 2020).
This review concluded that people living with depression are at considerable risk of internalising negative stereotypes and discrimination associated with depression. Prominent risk factors were identified, including depression symptom severity and stigma-related factors; but protective factors were also identified, such as quality of life and self-esteem.
The study reinforces findings from the existing literature that, in the context of comorbid anxiety and depression, anxiety seems to have an earlier age of onset. Early identification and intervention for anxiety disorders may therefore help to prevent the developmental of other comorbid psychiatric disorders, such as depression or additional anxiety disorders.
Patients showed a stronger preference for CAT-GSH, compared to CBT-GSH, and CAT-GSH participants were found to be more likely to complete full treatment. However, findings seem to indicate that preference accommodation did not have an impact on clinical outcomes, and the two GSH versions evaluated were found to be equally effective treatment options for the treatment of anxiety. Hence, CAT-GSH may represent an effective and well-tolerated option that could be offered to anxious patients in primary care settings.
This meta-analysis is very relevant for those working within mental health services and delivering mental health interventions with clients or community members. It suggests that transdiagnostic mental health interventions should be considered as an effective way of treating anxiety and depression, at least in the short term, as they might have an edge over other treatments, especially when treating co-morbidity or mixed anxiety and depression symptoms.
The primary goal of this study was to examine the feasibility and effectiveness of incorporating habit training into an app-based meditation intervention to maintain reductions in depressive symptoms among autistic adults. To read the full article, choose Open Athens “Institutional Login” and search for “Midlands Partnership”.
This cross-sectional study aims to systematically assess and compare parenting stress in families of children with various types of disabilities. Open access article - no login required
Dysfunctional attitudes (DA) are higher in depression; however, less is understood about their role in bipolar disorder (BD). This paper aimed to explore the presence of DA in BD in comparison to clinical and non-clinical groups. Also explored were the associations between DA and mood states of depression, mania or euthymia in BD.