With thousands of smartphone apps targeting mental health, it is difficult to ignore the rapidly expanding use of apps in the treatment of psychiatric disorders. Patients with psychiatric conditions are interested in mental health apps and have begun to use them. That does not mean that clinicians must support, endorse, or even adopt the use of apps, but they should be prepared to answer patients’ questions about apps and facilitate shared decision making around app use. This column describes an evaluation framework designed by the American Psychiatric Association to guide informed decision making around the use of smartphone apps in clinical care.. Login at top right hand side of page using your SSSFT NHS OpenAthens for full text. SSOTP- Please contact the library to receive a copy of this article - http://bit.ly/1Xyazai
The transition from medical student to doctor is an important milestone. The discovery that their time is no longer their own and that the demands of their job are greater than the time they have available is extremely challenging. The tips are generic & useful for all doctors transitioning into practice. . To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
Malnutrition and dehydration are risk factors for the development of pressure ulcers. This paper takes the advice of some dietitians and nutrition specialist nurses to identify their five top tips for eating well and drinking well to keep skin well.
Nutrition and hydration play a key role in keeping the skin healthy. The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence recognises deficiencies in diet as a risk for developing pressure ulcers and international guidance recommends using a nutritional screening tool to assess risk of malnutrition and other risk factors.
Conclusions Study participants had high levels of substance misuse and anxiety. Some students’ fitness to practice may be impaired as a result of their substance misuse or symptoms of psychological distress. Further efforts are needed to reduce substance misuse and to improve the mental well-being of students.. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
An overall shortfall in the number of medical graduates for current service demand and the desire for more flexibility, coupled with more rigid postgraduate medical training pathways, have emphasised the need to improve careers guidance at undergraduate and postgraduate level. Decision-making in medical careers has become of growing interest particularly with current and anticipated future shortages of doctors in some areas of medical practice.. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
This report from the Royal College of Physicians fracture liaison service outlines the finding of a wide-scale audit of physiotherapy in the UK. It argues that frail and older people recovering from a hip fracture require multidisciplinary rehabilitation, with personalised therapy that isn't disrupted as patients move away from the acute ward.
It seems safer to reduce the dose of biological drugs, rather than to stop them if people with rheumatoid arthritis and their doctors want to avoid relapse.
André Tomlin on a new study comparing the efficacy and acceptability of 21 antidepressants for the acute treatment of adults with major depressive disorder.
Longitudinal studies have repeatedly shown an increase in cognitive decline many years before clinical diagnosis of dementia. This decline is cited to accelerate closer to the time of diagnosis. Reported estimates of the timing of the trajectory change point (ie, the acceleration of decline) vary significantly between studies depending on the population and measure of cognition used.
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The Short Life Working Group report makes recommendations for a programme of work to tackle medication error and improve medicine safety.
The Department of Health and Social Care also asked the Policy Research Unit in Economic Evaluation of Health and Care Interventions (EEPRU) to review the evidence on medication errors in England. You can find out more on the EEPRU website.
This patient group direction (PGD) template supports the administration of typhoid Vi polysaccharide vaccine to overseas travellers at risk of exposure to Salmonella enterica serovar typhi (S. typhi) in accordance with recommendations from the National Travel Health Network and Centre (NaTHNaC).
PGD template to support the provision of hepatitis A/typhoid (HepA/Typhoid) vaccine, for travel or in accordance with PHE hepatitis A temporary recommendations.
Section 2 of the Children and Social Work Act 2017 requires each local authority to consult on and publish a local offer for its care leavers. This guidance provides information for local authorities on the development of the local offer and an illustrative local offer.
The Children and Social Work Act 2017 introduced a new duty on local authorities, to provide PA support to all care leavers up to age 25, if they want this support. This document provides information to local authorities to assist them in implementing the new duty.
Walking—whether for exercise, recreation or transport—often occurs within the bounds of the families, communities and neighbourhoods in which we live. It is a behaviour shaped by our physical and social environment, including social norms and networks.... Using inherent social structures in our societies may provide a cost-efficient way of encouraging people to walk and better use the built environment in which we live, work and play, and promote population-level change. These social factors may also have a key role to play in the maintenance of walking behaviour
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The importance of staying active in older age is becoming increasingly clear, but many older people find it difficult to meet targets set for the wider population.
This study provides useful information about physical activity levels in a group of older men in the UK and how activity may be linked to length of life.
Arguments over whether reducing fat or carbohydrate is more important for weight loss have raged for years. This well-conducted study suggests that both can work well, so long as people stick to them, eat less overall, and eat a healthy diet with plenty of vegetables and little sugar or refined grain.
This study adds a great deal of new and useful information to our understanding of the effects of antidepressants when used to treat depression in adults. The overall message is encouraging: these drugs are more effective than a placebo, and most of them are at least as tolerable as a placebo.
This was a very large, well-conducted review. However, it has a number of limitations
it's not possible to state with confidence that fruit tea is bad for your teeth. The best way to prevent tooth decay is to brush your teeth twice a day and cut down on sugary and starchy foods.
Psychology, Public Policy, and Law Vol. 24, Iss. 1, (Feb 2018): 11-23.
Experts in forensic psychology must make skilled observations and conclusions, minimally compromised by bias, in order to try and provide reliable and accurate conclusions to the courts. But the field has little data revealing how well forensic psychologists actually perform these tasks, in part because there has been no clear framework for systematic research of their expertise. Therefore, we consider forensic psychological assessments in light of Dror’s (2016) Hierarchy of Expert Performance (HEP).. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
Psychology, Public Policy, and Law Vol. 24, Iss. 1, (Feb 2018): 48-63.
Whereas there is a common assumption that most individuals with a criminal record can be eventually reintegrated into the community, the public has different expectations for sexual offenders. In many countries, individuals with a history of sexual offenses are subject to a wide range of long-term restrictions on housing and employment, as well as public notification measures intended to prevent them from merging unnoticed into the population of law-abiding citizens. This article examines the testable assumption that individuals with a history of sexual crime present an enduring risk for sexual recidivism.. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
Psychology of Addictive Behaviors Vol. 32, Iss. 1, (Feb 2018): 1-15.
This study compared Female-Specific Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (FS-CBT) to evidence-based, gender-neutral CBT (GN-CBT; Epstein & McCrady, 2009) for women with alcohol use disorder (AUD).. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
Psychology, Public Policy, and Law Vol. 24, Iss. 1, (Feb 2018): 1-10.
Decision-making of mental health professionals is influenced by irrelevant information (e.g., Murrie, Boccaccini, Guarnera, & Rufino, 2013). However, the extent to which mental health evaluators acknowledge the existence of bias, recognize it, and understand the need to guard against it, is unknown.. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology Vol. 86, Iss. 2, (Feb 2018): 125-139.
Objective: Our objective was to assess low-cost and feasible feedback alternatives and compare them to Lambert’s OQ feedback system. We also studied patient, therapist, and process characteristics that could moderate the effect of feedback on outcome, session attendance, and alliance.. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
Journal of Abnormal Psychology Vol. 127, Iss. 1, (Jan 2018): 1-11.
The hopelessness theory of depression is a prominent account of depression that posits that individuals with a negative inferential style are more likely to become hopeless when they experience negative life events (NLEs) and that hopelessness is a proximal cause of depression. There is strong evidence supporting the role of a negative inferential style in the pathogenesis of major depression; however, substantially less is known about the proposed role played by hopelessness.. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
Professional Psychology: Research and Practice Vol. 49, Iss. 1, (Feb 2018): 39-47.
Amassing research findings suggests that religious faith and/or spirituality (R/S) can both help and hinder recovery from mental health conditions that might prompt military veterans to seek psychotherapy or counseling. As such, there is increasing interest among psychologists and other professionals working with military populations in the helpfulness of addressing the R/S domain. However, research has yet to examine veterans’ actual preferences for integrating R/S in their treatment.. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
Psychology of Violence (Feb 12, 2018): No Pagination Specified
Objective: Limited research has investigated the influence of risk and protective factors on homeless youths’ health and social problems. This study presents a meta-analysis exploring associations between family and peer risk and protective factors and exposure to physically violent behavior in homeless youth.. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy (Feb 12, 2018): No Pagination Specified
Objective: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can have devastating effects on multiple aspects of functioning. Thus, it is imperative to increase access to evidence-based treatment for PTSD. Prolonged Exposure therapy (PE) has extensive empirical support and is one of the first-line PTSD treatments included in civilian, veteran, and military clinical practice guidelines. However, the standard 90-min PE session format can constitute a significant barrier to its adoption in routine clinical care settings, which typically schedule 60-min appointment sessions. If the length of PE sessions could be reduced from 90 to 60 min without compromising treatment efficacy and efficiency, this would remove a major barrier to PE adoption.. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
Neuropsychology Vol. 32, Iss. 1, (Jan 2018): 89-101.
Objective: The frequency of mind-wandering (MW) decreases as a function of age in healthy individuals. One possible explanation is that MW is a resource-dependent process, and cognitive resources decline with age. The present study provides the first investigation of MW in the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) to further examine the resource model and discontinuities between healthy aging and AD.. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
Neuropsychology Vol. 32, Iss. 1, (Jan 2018): 65-76.
Objective: Decreased processing speed in schizophrenia patients has been identified as a major impairment factor in various neuropsychological domains. Working memory span has been found to be involved in several deep or effortful cognitive processes. We investigated the impact that these 2 cognitive functions may have on phonological and semantic fluency in schizophrenia patients and healthy participants.. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
Stigma and Health Vol. 3, Iss. 1, (Feb 2018): 1-8.
Stigma is a common difficulty for those who experience psychosis as they are viewed as most dangerous, unpredictable, and least likely to recover. In particular, experiences of stigma are yet to be explored with inpatients admitted to psychiatric hospital. The aim of this study was to examine subjective experiences of stigma with acute psychiatric inpatients who experience psychosis.. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
Stigma and Health Vol. 3, Iss. 1, (Feb 2018): 16-26.
Health disparities related to stigmatized characteristics, including sexual orientation, have been well-documented. However, it is largely unknown whether temporal declines in stigma at a structural level contribute to concomitant reductions in health disparities between stigmatized and nonstigmatized groups. The objective of this study was to (a) explore associations between reductions in structural stigma (i.e., laws, policies, and social attitudes concerning sexual minorities) during the past decade in Sweden and sexual orientation-based mental health disparities, and (b) identify potential mechanisms that might explain this relationship.. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
Stigma and Health Vol. 3, Iss. 1, (Feb 2018): 77-84.
Extensive research confirms that people with psychotic disorders suffer high levels of social stigma on average. However, psychotic-like experiences show incredible diversity and cannot reasonably be understood as a monolithic category. It is plausible that voice-hearing experiences with benign content might elicit less stigma than those with negative content, and researchers have hypothesized that culturally or theologically consistent voice-hearing experiences might elicit no stigma at all.. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
Psychology of Religion and Spirituality Vol. 10, Iss. 1, (Feb 2018): 79-87.
We compared the effectiveness of religiously integrated cognitive–behavioral therapy (RCBT) versus conventional CBT (CCBT) on decreasing suicidal thoughts in persons with major depressive disorder (MDD) and chronic medical illness (CMI).. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
Psychology of Religion and Spirituality (Feb 15, 2018): No Pagination Specified
It is known that religiosity is a positive correlate of well-being among adolescents and emerging adults. The current study extends this focus by assessing the roles of self-efficacy and perceived social support, which are presumed to explain the association of religiosity with psychological well-being (PWB). To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
Stigma and Health Vol. 3, Iss. 1, (Feb 2018): 42-52.
Substance use disorder is one of the most stigmatized health conditions. Stigma internalization is one of the main consequences of the stigmatization process, and it is associated with lower self-esteem and self-efficacy and worse recovery prospects. It may also bring guilt, hopelessness, anxiety, self-devaluation, and depression. This study investigated self-stigma among substance dependents who sought treatment, testing the construction of a psychosocial model for understanding this phenomenon.. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
GeroPsych: The Journal of Gerontopsychology and Geriatric Psychiatry Vol. 31, Iss. 1, (2018): 17-30.
Existing research has primarily evaluated music therapy (MT) as a means of reducing the negative affect, behavioral, and/or cognitive symptoms of dementia. Music listening (ML), on the other hand, offers a less-explored, potentially equivalent alternative to MT and may further reduce exposure to potentially harmful psychotropic medications traditionally used to manage negative behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD).. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
Psychology of Violence (Feb 15, 2018): No Pagination Specified
Objective: College women are at risk for exposure to sexual victimization, which is a risk factor for posttraumatic stress (PTS) and sexual dysfunction. Contemporary models of female sexual functioning identify the role of distal (e.g., sexual abuse) and proximal (e.g., psychological) variables in contributing to female sexual response. This study examined whether and how PTS symptom clusters are related to specific domains of sexual functioning in a sample of sexually active college women who reported a history of sexual victimization. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
Reports on behavioural outcomes after subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation in Parkinson’s disease are controversial and limited to short-term data. Long-term observation in a large cohort allows a better counselling and management.. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.
The meaning of psychiatric symptoms prior to a diagnosis of genetic frontotemporal dementia is discussed as either being part of a prodrome or being a sign of congenital neuronal vulnerability.. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.