Publications by authors named "Joshua E J Buckman"

Background: Relapse of depression is common and contributes to the overall associated morbidity and burden. We lack evidence-based tools to estimate an individual's risk of relapse after treatment in primary care, which may help us more effectively target relapse prevention.

Objective: The objective was to develop and validate a prognostic model to predict risk of relapse of depression in primary care.

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Background: Impairments in the ability to carry out social activities commonly co-occur alongside depression. Improving social functioning is often overlooked in treatment. This is despite the high value placed by patients on social functioning and the potential for interventions focused on social functioning to have additional benefits in reducing depressive symptoms.

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Introduction: People with dementia may benefit from psychological therapies for depression or anxiety, but evidence of their effectiveness in atypical dementia is limited.

Methods: Using electronic health-care records of > 2 million people who attended psychological therapy services in England between 2012 and 2019, we examined pre-post therapy symptom changes and compared therapy outcomes among 523 people with atypical dementia, a matched cohort without dementia, and 1157 people with typical dementia.

Results: People with atypical dementia experienced reductions in depression (Cohen d = -0.

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Background: Autistic people are disproportionately likely to experience premature mortality and most mental and physical health conditions. We measured the incidence of diagnosed conditions accounting for the most disability-adjusted life years in the UK population according to the Global Burden of Disease study (anxiety, depression, self-harm, harmful alcohol use, substance use, migraine, neck or back pain, and gynaecological conditions).

Methods: Participants were aged 18 years or above and had an autism diagnosis recorded in the IQVIA Medical Research Database between 01/01/2000 and 16/01/2019.

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Background: There is heterogeneity in the long-term trajectories of depressive symptoms among patients. To date, there has been little effort to inform the long-term trajectory of symptom change and the factors associated with different trajectories. Such knowledge is key to treatment decision-making in primary care, where depression is a common reason for consultation.

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Background: A significant rise in mental health disorders was expected during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, referrals to mental health services dropped for several months before rising to pre-pandemic levels.

Aims: To identify trajectories of incidence and risk factors for common mental disorders among the general population during 14 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, to inform potential mental health service needs.

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Background: Psychological therapies can be effective in reducing symptoms of depression and anxiety in people living with dementia (PLWD). However, factors associated with better therapy outcomes in PLWD are currently unknown.

Aims: To investigate whether dementia-specific and non-dementia-specific factors are associated with therapy outcomes in PLWD.

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Purpose: There are discrepancies in mental health treatment outcomes between ethnic groups, which may differ between genders. NHS Talking Therapies for anxiety and depression provide evidence-based psychological therapies for common mental disorders. This study examines the intersection between ethnicity and gender as factors associated with psychological treatment outcomes.

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Background: Previous research has shown that people who have been diagnosed autistic are more likely to die prematurely than the general population. However, statistics on premature mortality in autistic people have often been misinterpreted. In this study we aimed to estimate the life expectancy and years of life lost experienced by autistic people living in the UK.

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Background: Autistic adults report a higher prevalence of anxiety and depression than adults without identified autism but have poorer access to appropriate mental health care. Evidence-based psychological therapies are recommended in treatment guidelines for autistic adults, but no study has investigated their effectiveness in large samples representative of the autistic population accessing routine care. This study aimed to examine therapy outcomes for autistic adults in a primary care service.

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Background: To determine: whether young adults (aged 18-24) not in education, employment or training (NEET) have different psychological treatment outcomes to other young adults; any socio-demographic or treatment-related moderators of differential outcomes; and whether service-level changes are associated with better outcomes for those who are NEET.

Methods: A cohort was formed of 20 293 young adults treated with psychological therapies in eight Improving Access to Psychological Therapies services. Pre-treatment characteristics, outcomes, and moderators of differential outcomes were compared for those who were and were not NEET.

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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionally affected the mental health of health and social care workers (HSCWs), with many experiencing symptoms of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. Psychological interventions have been offered via mental health services and in-house psychology teams, but their effectiveness in this context is not well documented.

Aims: To evaluate a stepped-care psychological support pathway for HSCWs from Homerton Healthcare Foundation Trust in London, which offered psychological first aid, evidence-based psychological therapies and group-based well-being workshops.

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Background: Autism has long been viewed as a paediatric condition, meaning that many autistic adults missed out on a diagnosis as children when autism was little known. We estimated numbers of diagnosed and undiagnosed autistic people in England, and examined how diagnostic rates differed by socio-demographic factors.

Methods: This population-based cohort study of prospectively collected primary care data from IQVIA Medical Research Data (IMRD) compared the prevalence of diagnosed autism to community prevalence to estimate underdiagnosis.

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Aims: People with depression are up to 72% more at risk to develop cardiovascular disease (CVD) in their lifetime. Evidence-based psychotherapies are first-line interventions for the treatment of depression and are delivered nationally in England through the National Health Service via the Improving Access to Psychological Therapy (IAPT) primary care programme. It is currently unknown whether positive therapy outcomes may be associated with cardiovascular risk reduction.

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Background: Cognitive stimulation therapy (CST) is the only non-pharmacological, treatment for dementia recommended by the UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, following multiple international trials demonstrating beneficial cognitive outcomes in people with mild-to-moderate dementia. However, there is limited understanding of whether treatment prognosis is influenced by sociodemographic and clinical variables (such as dementia subtype and gender), information which could inform clinical decision-making.

Aim: We describe the protocol for a systematic review and individual patient data meta-analysis assessing the prognostic factors related to CST.

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Background: The transition to university and resultant social support network disruption can be detrimental to the mental health of university students. As the need for mental health support is becoming increasingly prevalent in students, identification of factors associated with poorer outcomes is a priority. Changes in social functioning have a bi-directional relationship with mental health, however it is not clear how such measures may be related to effectiveness of psychological treatments.

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Background: Dementia incidence is increasing across the globe and currently there are no disease-modifying pharmaceutical treatments. The Lancet Commission on dementia identified 12 modifiable risk factors which explain 40% of dementia incidence. However, whether these associations are causal in nature is unclear.

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Background: There is substantial variation in patient symptoms following psychological therapy for depression and anxiety. However, reliance on endpoint outcomes ignores additional interindividual variation during therapy. Knowing a patient's likely symptom trajectories could guide clinical decisions.

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Background: Meta-analyses support an association between anxiety in older adulthood and dementia. The aim of this study was to use routinely collected health data to test whether treatment of anxiety disorders through psychological intervention is associated with a lower incidence of dementia.

Methods: In this prospective cohort study, data from nationally provided psychological therapy services in England termed Improving Access to Psychological Therapies from 2012 to 2019 were linked to medical records, including dementia diagnoses as defined by the tenth edition of the International Classification of Diseases, up to 8 follow-up years later.

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Article Synopsis
  • A study was conducted to identify new predictors of therapy outcomes for anxiety and depression by analyzing self-reported data from nearly 2,900 participants in the UK over the past decade.
  • The analysis revealed that having a university education and engaging in additional therapeutic activities were linked to better therapy outcomes, while having more episodes of illness and higher personality disorder symptoms were associated with poorer outcomes.
  • The findings suggest that collecting therapy outcome data from large groups via self-reports can be a rapid and cost-effective way to explore factors influencing treatment success and to develop new hypotheses for future research.
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