Depression is a leading cause of disability worldwide that negatively impacts quality of life. Talk therapy such as cognitive behavioural therapy is an effective treatment for depression. The Internet is an important tool for mental healthcare delivery. Internet-delivered or online talk therapy interventions are associated with lower costs and improved accessibility.
Current reviews do not address the effectiveness of Internet-delivered cognitive behavioural therapy (iCBT) on quality of life (QoL). To read the full article, choose Open Athens “Institutional Login” and search for “Midlands Partnership”.
Fully automated mental health apps provide a promising opportunity for increasing access to mental health care and resources. Given this opportunity, continued research into the utility and effectiveness of mental health apps is crucial. Therapeutic alliance (TA) refers to the relationship between a client and a healthcare professional, and has been shown to be an important predictor of clinical outcomes in face-to-face therapy. Given the significance of TA in traditional therapy, it is important to explore whether the notion of a digital therapeutic alliance (DTA) in the context of fully automated mental health apps also plays an important role in clinical outcomes. To read the full article, choose Open Athens “Institutional Login” and search for “Midlands Partnership”.
It is really encouraging that CBT performs better than control conditions for reducing depression symptoms up to 12 months later and across many different formats and populations. CBT has been well tested for depression, and whilst there is still much room for improvement (e.g., the effect sizes are much more modest for child and adolescent trials than for trials in adults), we can be reasonably confident, given these findings, that CBT is worth investing in as a treatment approach. That said, one size doesn’t fit all, and again, it is encouraging that self-help CBT, even without human support input, was at least moderately good at reducing depression symptoms.
Self-harm is a major public health concern. Lifetime prevalence is high, and rates of self-harm are rising; however, available interventions do not benefit everyone, and engagement with therapy can be low. Qualitative accounts allow for a greater understanding of what is helpful to individuals. This study aimed to synthesize the experiences of interventions for self-harm, from participants who have participated in these themselves.
In the machine learning subfield of natural language processing, a topic model is a type of unsupervised method that is used to uncover abstract topics within a corpus of text. Dynamic topic modelling (DTM) is used for capturing change in these topics over time. The study deploys DTM on corpus of electronic health record psychotherapy notes. This retrospective study examines whether DTM helps distinguish closely matched patients that did and did not die by suicide. To read the full article, choose Open Athens “Institutional Login” and search for “Midlands Partnership”.
Concern for symptom exacerbation and treatment drop-out is an important barrier to the implementation of trauma-focused therapy (TFT), especially in people with a psychotic disorder. This study, which was part of a multicenter randomized controlled trial, investigated posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom exacerbation during eye movement desensitization reprocessing (EMDR) therapy and prolonged exposure (PE) in a sample of 99 participants with PTSD and psychosis.
The efficacy of psychological interventions delivered under the Mental Health Act (1983) (MHA) in England and Wales is unclear. While meta-analyses have reviewed acute and forensic psychological interventions in wider geographical areas, there has been no review specifically in the unique MHA context.
Although studies have shown that client feedback can improve treatment outcome, little is known about which factors might possibly moderate the effects of such feedback. The present study investigated potential therapist variables that might influence whether frequent client feedback is effective, including the Big Five personality traits, internal/external feedback propensity and self-efficacy. To read the full article, choose Open Athens “Institutional Login” and search for “Midlands Partnership”.
Unfortunately, there are no implications for clinical practice just yet. Nonetheless, this line of research does have the potential to help detect those patients who might benefit from a particular form of treatment. Crucially, for the goal of precision medicine to be realised, we need to be able to detect not only who will respond to CBT, but who will respond to other treatments
COVID-19 had an immediate impact on the way Improving Access to Psychological Therapy (IAPT) services in the United Kingdom were delivered, requiring services to move to remote therapy. While remote therapy has been shown to be effective, little is known about the effects associated with moving to remote therapy delivered during COVID-19 within IAPT services.
Why you should read this article:
To enhance your knowledge of the use of canine-assisted therapy in healthcare settings.
To learn about a project that involved introducing a therapy dog to anxiety management groups for young people.
To consider the effects that the presence of a therapy dog may have on young people.
To read the full article, choose Open Athens “Institutional Login” and search for “Midlands Partnership”.
This study aims to longitudinally investigate the effects of individual's factors on subsequent burn-out/psychological distress in a sample of mental health practitioners, testing if higher attachment anxiety and avoidance and lower reflective functioning (i.e., certainty and uncertainty of mental states) and well-being at baseline may lead to a greater psychological distress and burn-out 1 year later.
Whether ACT-DL is beneficial in the long-term for only a sub-group of people experiencing symptoms of early psychosis or all of them seems a question of secondary importance when preliminary evidence shows that it is effective for negative symptoms. Furthermore, the confirmation that providing therapeutic intervention in combination with ACT components is likely to help delay or manage the negative symptoms of early psychosis is imperative for clinicians and health care providers.
Reminiscence therapy is a common psychosocial intervention in mental health nursing. Numerous secondary studies have explored the effects of reminiscence therapy interventions in older adults, and while the effects are significant, conflicting results remain. To read the full article, choose Open Athens “Institutional Login” and search for “Midlands Partnership”.
In this study, we combined the results of two controlled trials and examined the relationships between working alliance, telepresence, cognitive change, and treatment outcome. To read the full article, choose Open Athens “Institutional Login” and search for “Midlands Partnership”.
Third wave cognitive behavioural therapies are increasingly used with children and adolescents. This meta-analysis aimed to determine the effectiveness of four third-wave interventions (acceptance and commitment therapy, compassion focused therapy, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, and metacognitive therapy) for youth. To read the full article, choose Open Athens “Institutional Login” and search for “Midlands Partnership”.
Research suggests that leaders are effective when they are ingroup prototypical (represent the identity of the group they seek to lead). However, it is unclear whether leaders should represent the group's current identity (“who we are”) or aspired identity (“who we want to be”). This study investigated which of these forms of prototypicality best predicted leadership effectiveness in group psychotherapy.
Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is being investigated as a treatment for a range of psychiatric illnesses. Current research suggests that the kinds of subjective experiences induced by psychedelic compounds play key roles in producing therapeutic outcomes. To date, most knowledge of therapeutic psychedelic experiences are derived from psychometric assessments with scales such as the Mystical Experience Questionnaire. While these approaches are insightful, more nuanced and detailed descriptions of psychedelic-induced changes to subjective experience are required. To read the full article, choose Open Athens “Institutional Login” and search for “Midlands Partnership”.
Numerous randomized controlled trials have shown cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) to be effective in treating social anxiety disorder (SAD). Yet, less is known about the effectiveness of CBT for SAD conducted by psychotherapists in training in routine clinical practice. In this study, 231 patients with SAD were treated with CBT under routine conditions and were examined at pre- and post-treatment as well as at 6 and 12 months follow-up.