April 2010 - Mental Health Update

Young drug users prefer being high to being healthy

Researchers from Liverpool John Moores University and IREFREA, a European body which researches drug use and its prevention, have been looking into 'recreational' drug use and its impact on people's happiness and well-being. They studied 1...

Published Mon, Apr 19 2010 2:18 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Substance Abuse

Saturday night's alright for fighting

For many people a fight is as much part of a good night out as drinking, flirting and dancing. Researchers from Glasgow Caledonian University hung around eight city-centre night clubs in a bid to find out more about violence. They saw 171 violent incidents...

Published Mon, Apr 19 2010 1:51 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Alcohol Problems, Violence

Bullying: not just something to grow up and get over

Bullying is a feature of many children's lives but is often thought to be an inevitable phase of growing up, something that is down to bad luck, that passes with age and that has few long-term consequences. Researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry...

Published Mon, Apr 19 2010 3:23 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Bullying

Linking the Big Five to depression

Psychologists often use the 'Big Five' or OCEAN model to assess people's personality on five variables: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism (the tendency to see events in a negative or pessimistic light...

Published Mon, Apr 19 2010 3:59 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Depression, Genetics

Black men with chronic pain are more likely to experience depression than White men. Researchers from the University of Michigan studied 1,600 men and found that those who were Black were more likely to experience depression, 'affective distress'...

Published Mon, Apr 19 2010 5:41 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Service Users' Health, Depression

Even short-term meditation can boost concentration

Even a small number of meditation sessions can have a beneficial effect on people's cognition. Researchers at the University of North Carolina studied 49 students. Half of them listened to an audio book while the other half received meditation training...

Published Mon, Apr 19 2010 5:57 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Meditation

Nature, nurture and ADHD

Although there is some debate about the exact proportions of each most psychiatrists now accept that the nature/nurture debate is a pointless one and that mental-health problems are due to a complex interaction between people's genes and their environment...

Published Mon, Apr 19 2010 7:21 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: ADHD

Aliens, incentives and ADHD

Researchers from Nottingham University in the U.K. have been using a computer game to assess the effectiveness of behaviour therapy in treating children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In behaviour therapy children are rewarded for...

Published Mon, Apr 19 2010 6:53 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: ADHD

Obesity, genes and Alzheimer's disease

FTO is a gene associated with obesity. People with one copy of it are on average 1.5kg heavier than average and people with two copies of it are 3kg heavier. The gene is carried by 46% of Western Europeans and researchers from California University now...

Published Tue, Apr 20 2010 4:06 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Alzheimer's Disease, Obesity, Genetics

Couples therapy: how effective is it?

Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, have been studying the effectiveness of couples therapy in a study of 134 married couples. Most of the couples were in their 30s and 40s and slightly more than half of them had children. The...

Published Tue, Apr 20 2010 4:59 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Couples Therapy

People suffering from depression may have far more side effects than psychiatrists think they do. Mark Zimmerman from Rhode Island Hospital asked 300 people being treated for depression to fill out the Toronto Side Effects Scale. The patients rated the...

Published Tue, Apr 20 2010 6:23 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Antidepressants, Depression - medication

Sexual preference and violence

People who are homosexual, bisexual or *** or who have had a same sex relationship in the past are 1.5 to 2x more likely to have experienced violent events during their childhood and have double the risk of experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder...

Published Tue, Apr 20 2010 6:56 AM by Mental Health Update

Drinking women do better in couples therapy

Women being treated for alcohol problems with cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) might respond better to couples therapy than individual therapy. Barbara McCrady from the University of New Mexico and Elizabeth Epstein from the Center of Alcohol Studies...

Published Wed, Apr 21 2010 2:53 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Alcohol Problems, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Couples Therapy

Brain-training games don't make you any cleverer

Brain-training games might be good fun but they probably don't make you cleverer. In an experiment for the BBC television programme 'Bang Goes The Theory' 11,000 people used the games for six weeks and took tests of their memory, concentration...

Published Wed, Apr 21 2010 2:16 AM by Mental Health Update

Autism and child development

Not everyone with autism develops at the same rate or in the same way during early childhood. Researchers from the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, Maryland collected data from 2,720 parents and found three different patterns of autism. Regression...

Published Wed, Apr 21 2010 3:48 AM by Mental Health Update

Filed under: Autism, Asperger's Syndrome