All scales are not equal; which is the best for detecting depression after...
Roughly 33% of stroke sufferers also develop depression at some point. This may be an under-estimate of the problem, as depression is difficult to detect in people with poor physical health. If missed,...
View ArticlePrimary care interventions for alcohol misuse: US Preventative Services Task...
Alcohol misuse is recognised as one of the major health care issues in the US. Specifically, alcohol misuse is ranked third in causes of preventable deaths (after tobacco and obesity) affecting 30% of...
View ArticleOral examination to detect potentially malignant disorders and mouth cancer
November is Mouth Cancer Awareness month here in the UK and around 6,500 cases are diagnosed a year. Mouth cancer is the 6th commonest cancer worldwide. In India, Sir Lanka and Pakistan it is the most...
View ArticleScreening for mental health problems in the adult prison population
On 14th May 2010, when Kenneth Clarke returned to the Ministry of Justice, the prison population in England and Wales was 85,009. When he had previously been Home Secretary in 1992-93, the average...
View ArticleTeenagers who have been concussed are three times more likely to have...
Depression in teenagers is a significant problem, with serious and potentially fatal consequences. Estimates of how many teenagers have depression at any one time vary between countries, but overall...
View ArticleHow do we make a diagnosis? Screening tools for anxiety disorders
Josephine Neale blogs about a systematic review of screening tools for anxiety disorders, which concludes that the GAD-7 and PHQ instruments are appropriate for use in primary care. The post How do we...
View ArticleManaging the care of adults with Down syndrome
Down syndrome is the most common cause of learning disability in the UK and life expectancy has shown a dramatic increase in the last fifty years. However, people with Down syndrome face significant...
View ArticleScreening for bipolar spectrum disorders (MDQ, BSDS and HCL-32)
Elena Marcus appraises a recent meta-analysis of screening for bipolar spectrum disorders, which concludes that the MDQ and HCL-32 tools are supported by more evidence than the BSDS tool. The post...
View ArticlePreventative healthcare – understanding uptake and barriers for people with...
We know that people with learning disabilities experience poor health and unequal access to healthcare but what about access to preventative healthcare measures? Here, in her debut blog, Angela...
View ArticleEffects of vision on knee biomechanics
In her debut blog, Maggie Hendry considers a systematic review of the current evidence investigating the role of vision on knee biomechanics during various functional tasks. The post Effects of vision...
View ArticleRise of the machine learning algorithm: the future of diagnosing schizophrenia?
Samei Huda reviews a meta-analysis of multivariate pattern recognition studies, which aims to detect neuroimaging biomarkers for schizophrenia. The post Rise of the machine learning algorithm: the...
View ArticleDiabetic retinopathy tests inaccessible to adults with learning disabilities
In this blog, Tara Quinn-Cirillo considers a study which finds out if people with learning disabilities and with diabetes are getting access to eye screening tests. The post Diabetic retinopathy tests...
View ArticlePrimary care interventions for alcohol misuse: US Preventative Services Task...
Alcohol misuse is recognised as one of the major health care issues in the US. Specifically, alcohol misuse is ranked third in causes of preventable deaths (after tobacco and obesity) affecting 30% of...
View ArticleWhooley questions have high sensitivity and modest specificity in the...
Ian Anderson on a recent diagnostic accuracy meta-analysis, which shows that the Whooley questions for depression are effective at ruling out the condition, but that false positives are common. The...
View ArticleScreening for mental health problems in the adult prison population
On 14th May 2010, when Kenneth Clarke returned to the Ministry of Justice, the prison population in England and Wales was 85,009. When he had previously been Home Secretary in 1992-93, the average...
View ArticleScreening for bipolar spectrum disorders (MDQ, BSDS and HCL-32)
Elena Marcus appraises a recent meta-analysis of screening for bipolar spectrum disorders, which concludes that the MDQ and HCL-32 tools are supported by more evidence than the BSDS tool. The post...
View ArticleTwo-question screening for depression in older adults
Andrew Sommerlad reviews a new systematic review and meta-analysis and asks: Can two questions identify depression in older people? This is the second in a new series of Mental Elf blogs produced in...
View ArticleShould we screen new Dads for depression? #DadsMHday
André Tomlin shares his own experiences of being diagnosed with postnatal depression and wonders how we can improve screening for other fathers at risk during the perinatal period. The post Should we...
View ArticleCancer screening disparities in people with mental illness
Emily Peckham from the Closing The Gap Network writes her debut blog on a new systematic review, which finds that people with mental illnesses were less likely to receive screening for cancer compared...
View ArticleSelf-harm in prison: can we accurately predict risk?
In her debut blog, Verity Wainwright looks into a recently devised screening tool, which tries to predict self-harm in male prisoners. The post Self-harm in prison: can we accurately predict risk?...
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