CBT and low back pain

Lower back pain is a very common problem and affects one in three adults in the U.K. each year with an estimated 2.5 million people seeking help from their GP. There is thought to be a psychological component to low back pain and researchers at Warwick University have been looking into the effectiveness of CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy) in treating it. They studied 701 people with back pain of whom 468 had six sessions of CBT. Those participants who received CBT saw their pain and disability levels fall twice as much as the other group.

You can find out more about this research at

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7317284/Back-pain-may-be-in-the-mind.html

Personality and post-natal depression

There are well established links between people's personality, the way they think about the world and their vulnerability to depression but it is less clear whether these factors have the same influence on people's tendency to develop postnatal depression. A team of researchers led by Lisa Jones from the University of Birmingham carried out a study of 447 women. 143 had had postnatal depression, 131 had had children and had had depression but not postnatal depression and 173 made up a healthy control group. Both the groups who had suffered from depression had higher levels of neuroticism (a tendency to get anxious and depressed about things) and dysfunctional beliefs and lower self-esteem than the other women but there were no significant differences between the women who had suffered from postnatal depression and those who had depression at other times.

Jones, Lisa ... [et al] - Cognitive style, personality and vulnerability to postnatal depression British Journal of Psychiatry March 2010, 196(3), 200-205

What patients think about involuntary treatment

All over the world large numbers of people are admitted to psychiatric hospitals. The laws governing this are controversial and in the U.K. are governed by the 2007 Mental Health Act. Most laws are based on the assumption that people who are compulsorily admitted to hospital do not recognise their need for care at the time so research has tended to concentrate on whether - looking back on things - people think it was a good idea that they received treatment. A team of researchers, led by Stefan Priebe from Newham Centre for Mental Health, London led a study of 1,613 people in 11 different countries. They were interviewed within a week of admission and again after a month and three months. The number of people who were happy with the decision to involuntarily treat them varied a lot between the different countries and ranged from 71% in Italy to 39% in Lithuania after a month and from 46% in Sweden to 86% in Italy after three months. (The figures for England were 47% and 54% respectively.) Women, people living alone and people with schizophrenia were more likely to be unhappy with their admissions.

Priebe, Stefan ... [et al] - Patients' views of involuntary hospital admission after 1 and 3 months: prospective study in 11 European countries British Journal of Psychiatry March 2010, 196(3), 179-185

Binge drinking and the military: abstinence makes the will grow stronger

In 2008 nearly 185,000 new members were recruited to the U.S. armed forces. Navy and air-force personnel are forbidden to drink alcohol and smoke during their basic training and researchers from RTI international in North Carolina looked at how much people drank before and after starting their basic training. They studied 4,962 young adults, aged between 18 and 25 and found that 43.1% of them had engaged in binge drinking during the month before their basic training, 27.3% of whom could be described as frequent heavy episodic drinkers. This was higher than the average for the rest of the population but the rates after basic training were much lower with 12% being infrequent heavy episodic drinkers and only 9% frequent heavy episodic drinkers. This suggests that although the forces recruit from a pool of heavy drinkers the abstinence involved in basic training reduces this significantly. Over time the rates of binge drinking among the participants climbed again but to nowhere near the levels they had been before.

Bray, Robert M. ... [et al] - Alcohol use after forced abstinence in basic training among United States Navy and Air Force trainees Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs January 2010, 71(1), 15-22

Tobacco, drug use and genetics

Around 60% of adolescents have smoked a cigarette at some point in their lives and around a third have smoked during the last month. Tobacco is often seen as a gateway to cannabis and other drugs but some scientists dispute this 'gateway' theory and suggest that there is a common genetic factor that links tobacco smoking and cannabis use. Researchers from the University of Amsterdam studied 3,744 Finnish twins and found that the 'total variation in the initiation of illicit drugs' was down to starting smoking (40%) genetic factors (32%) common environmental factors (20%) and unique environmental factors i.e. factors experienced by only one of the twins (8%) suggesting that tobacco use was marginally more important than genetics in predicting illegal drug use.

Huizink, Anja C. ... [et al] - Tobacco, cannabis, and other illicit drug use among Finnish adolescent twins: causal relationship or correlated liabilities Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs January 2010, 71(1), 5-14

Young people, mental health and the Internet

Young people often find it difficult to access mainstream mental-health services partly because of the stigma associated with mental-health problems. One way round this is to use the Internet and a team of researchers from University College Cork surveyed 922 college students, aged between 18 and 24 to find out what they thought about doing this. 72.4% of the participants used the Internet several times a day and 30.8% had previously searched for mental-health information online, mostly for depression. 68% said they would use the Internet for mental-health support if they needed to but 79.4% said they would still prefer face-to-face support.

Horgan, A. and Sweeney, J. - Young students' use of the Internet for mental health, information and support Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 2010. 513), 117-123

Boys, girls and ADHD

Little is known about the effects of gender, on ADHD over time and on the links between ADHD and other mental-health problems. Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital and the State University of New York studied 471 children with ADHD in a long-term study and found that both sexes showed a similar decline in ADHD symptoms as the children got older. However, girls were more likely to 'carry over' mental-health problems from childhood to adolescence, even allowing for the influence of adolescent ADHD.

Monuteaux, Michael C. ... [et al] - The influence of sex on the course and psychiatric correlates of ADHD from childhood to adolescence: a longitudinal study Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry March 2010, 51(3), 233-241

ADHD and time perception

People with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) often have problems with their perception of time but it is unclear whether this is due to difficulties in estimating how much time has elapsed or by the fact that they become distracted by other things. A team of researchers from Taipei looked into this issue in a study of 258 children aged between 10 and 17, 168 of whom had ADHD. In one task children had to press a button for the same length of time that a green circle was lit up on a screen. In another task the children did the same thing but had to count numbers while they estimated the time. The children with ADHD were worse at estimating the time in both tasks but their performance grew worse as the task got more complicated suggesting that attention played a more important part than time perception per se.

Hwang, Shoou-Lian ... [et al] - Deficits in interval timing measured by the dual-task paradigm among children and adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry March 2010, 51(3), 223-232

Exercise, illness and anxiety

Having a chronic illness can sometimes lead to the development of anxiety - something that can lower people's quality of life and make them less likely to follow their treatment plans. Researchers from the University of Georgia have been looking into the effectiveness of exercise in reducing this anxiety in a review of 40 studies covering nearly 3,000 patients with a variety of medical conditions. The researchers found that, on average, the patients who exercised regularly reported a 20% reduction in anxiety symptoms. Exercise sessions greater than 30 minutes were better at reducing anxiety than those of less than 30 minutes but programmes of exercise of between 3-12 weeks were actually more effective than those of more than 12 weeks- perhaps because they were less daunting for the participants.

You can find out more about this research at

http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/02/24/exercise-helps-to-reduce-anxiety/11681.html

Belief in a caring God and depression

New research from Rush University in Chicago suggests that belief in a caring God can improve people's response to treatment for depression. Previous research has suggested that religious belief can help prevent people developing depression in the first place but this is the first study to show that it can help people recover more quickly from it. The study of 136 adults diagnosed with major depression or bipolar depression found that those with strong beliefs in a personal and concerned God were more likely to experience an improvement. Participants who scored in the top third of the Religious Well Being Scale were 75% more likely to get better with medical treatment for clinical depression. The improved response of the people with a belief in a caring God was not linked to feelings of hope engendered by religion but was tied specifically to a belief that a Supreme Being cared.

You can find out more about this research at

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/180150.php

Obesity and cognitive function

A forty-year study of Swedish twins between 1963 and 2002 has found that those who had a higher body-mass-index when they were middle-aged had 'significantly lower general cognitive ability' and 'significantly steeper decline' than their thinner counterparts over time. The study - headed by Anna Dahl, from Jonkoping University in Sweden - found the same results for men and women and that obesity was particularly damaging where there were other health problems such as poor muscle strength or depression.

You can find out more about this research at

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100223154344.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Depression, obesity and stress

Cortisol is a hormone that is produced in reaction to stress. It is also produced more when people are depressed and plays a role in regulating people's metabolisms. There is thought to be a link between depression, cortisol and obesity but no-one is quite sure how this works. A team of researchers from Penn State University in the U.S. looked into this issue in a sample of 111 boys and girls between 8 and 13. The children were assessed for their levels of depression, weighed and measured and had their cortisol levels taken before and after an assessed maths test designed to raise their stress levels. The children who were more depressed showed a higher increase in their levels of cortisol after being stressed but this was only associated with obesity in the case of the girls.

You can find out more about this research at

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100223154342.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Omega-3s and psychosis

Early intervention has been found to lead to much better results for people with schizophrenia and psychosis. This often takes the form of antipsychotic drugs but they have serious side effects and their use is controversial in people who have yet to develop full-blown psychosis. A team of researchers led by Dr G. Paul Amminger from the University of Vienna studied the use of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in 81 people at 'ultra-high risk' of psychotic disorder. Half got the omega-3 and half got a placebo. By the end of the study only 4.9% of the people in the omega-3 group had developed psychosis compared to 27.5% in the placebo group. The omega-3s also significantly reduced symptoms and improved functioning with no more side effects than the placebo.

Amminger, G. Paul ... [et al] - Long-chain omega-3 fatty acids for indicated prevention of psychotic disorders: a randomized controlled trial Archives of General Psychiatry February 2010, 67(2), 146-154

Exercise, schizophrenia and growing your hippocampus

Neural plasticity is the brain's ability to change and adapt over time. People with schizophrenia show changes in their brains and it could be the case that they have less neural plasticity than other people. People with schizophrenia also have smaller hippocampi than other people. Exercise is known to stimulate growth in the hippocampus and a team of researchers led by Dr. Frank-Gerald Pajonk from Liebenburg in Germany set out to test this in a study of 32 people, 24 of whom had schizophrenia. Some of the participants did cycling to boost their fitness while the rest played table football. After three months those healthy controls who did exercise showed a 16% increase in the volume of their hippocampi while those people with schizophrenia who exercised showed a 12% increase; whereas the people who played table football's hippocampi actually shrank by 1%. The more people's fitness improved the greater the increase in the size of their hippocampus and the more people's hippocampi grew the more their scores for short-term memory improved.

Pajonk, Frank-Gerald ... [et al] - Hippocampal plasticity in response to exercise in schizophrenia Archives of General Psychiatry February 2010, 67(2), 133-143

Stereotype threat, social skills and schizophrenia

Stereotype threat is the feeling that one is the target of demeaning stereotypes and has been found to affect performance among a number of different people doing a number of different tasks. Interestingly people do not have to actually be treated in a negative way for this effect to occur, they just have to believe they are being stereotyped. People with schizophrenia are often thought to have poor social skills and a team of researchers from the University of New South Wales and the University of Queensland wondered whether this could be due to stereotype threat. They got 30 people with schizophrenia to talk to two 'confederates.' The people with schizophrenia were told that one of the confederates knew about their diagnosis while the other didn't; but in fact neither of the confederates knew that they were talking to someone with schizophrenia. Although the participants with schizophrenia did not perceive any differences in their own social behaviour those confederates who talked to someone who thought the confederates knew about their mental-health problems rated the participants' social skills as poorer.

Henry, Julie D., von Hippel, Courtney and Shapiro, Lisa - Stereotype threat contributes to social difficulties in people with schizophrenia British Journal of Clinical Psychology March 2010, 49(1), 31-41

CBT and learning disabilities

People with learning disabilities suffer from mental-health problems as much as, if not more than, other people. Cognitive behaviour therapy has been found to be effective for a number of different mental-health problems but it is unclear whether people with learning disabilities are able to grasp the links between thoughts, feelings and behaviour that they need to understand in order for the therapy to be effective. Researchers from the University of East Anglia and Norfolk Primary Care NHS Trust looked into this issue in a study of 34 adults with learning disabilities. 18 of them were given training in distinguishing between thoughts, feelings and behaviours and in linking thoughts and feelings while the rest of the participants went to a relaxation class. The study found that the training led to significant improvements in the particpants' abilities to link thoughts and feelings, skills that could then be applied to new situations. However, the training had no effect on the participants' ability to distinguish between thoughts, feelings and behaviour.

Bruce, Melanie ... [et al] - Does training improve understanding of core concepts in cognitive behaviour therapy by people with intellectual disabilities? A randomized experiment British Journal of Clinical Psychology March 2010, 49(1), 1-13

Alcohol and bipolar disorder

Researchers from the University Medical Centre in Amsterdam have been looking into the effects of alcohol consumption on people with bipolar disorder. They studied 137 people with bipolar disorder. 44 drank very little or nothing at all, 49 were moderate drinkers who drank less than the Government's recommended amount and 44 were heavy drinkers who drank more than this. The participants kept diaries of their moods for at least two months. Contrary to expectations the group of heavy drinkers did not have a greater number of depressed days, mood swings or other symptoms than the occasional or moderate drinkers. 90% of the sample took their medication regularly and none of them had any other health problems so these factors may have lessened the impact of the alcohol. The study was a small-scale one and it is not a good idea to drink more than the recommended limits of alcohol - even if there is no impact on bipolar disorder!

You can find out more about this research at

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE61H4R020100218?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews&sp=true

Holidays and happiness

Holidays can make you happy before you go on them but have little long-lasting effect once you get back. Researchers from Erasmus University in Rotterdam studied 1,530 people, 974 of whom went on holiday during the study period. They found that those people who were planning a holiday were happier than other people due to the anticipation of their break. For most people there was no difference in happiness after the holiday between those people who had been away and those who hadn't. People who had had a very relaxing holiday were a little happier for the first two weeks afterwards but the effect had completely worn off after eight weeks.

You can find out more about this research at

http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/02/19/vacation-unlikely-to-improve-overall-happiness/11593.html

Cognitive insight and psychosis

Cognitive insight is the ability to self-reflect, realise that beliefs may be mistaken and consider feedback from other people. Lack of it is thought to play an important role in the development and continuation of psychosis, and a team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the Institute of Psychology, King's College London looked into the influence of cognitive insight on the progress of 78 outpatients being treated for psychosis with cognitive behaviour therapy. They found that people with more cognitive insight had less severe delusions after treatment and that people whose cognitive insight improved over the course of their treatment had 'clinically significant reductions' in the severity of both delusions and auditory hallucinations by the end of their therapy.

Perivoliotis, Dimitri ... [et al] - Cognitive insight predicts favourable outcome in cognitive behavioral therapy for psychosis Psychosis February 2010, 2(1), 23-33

Military veterans still not getting PTSD care

Many military veterans in the U.S. are still not getting the treatment they need for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Dr Karen Seal from the San Franciscon Veteran Affairs Medical Centre lead a team studying this issue. They found that between 2002 and 2008 nearly 50,000 veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars received a diagnosis of PTSD. However, fewer than 10% of them completed the recommended treatment of 10-12 weekly sessions within four months of being diagnosed, and even after a year only 30% had. Men, veterans under the age of 25, those who lived in rural areas and those who got their diagnosis at primary-care clinics were less likely to receive recommended care.

You can find out more about this issue at

http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=news&id=125952&cn=109