Attitudes and Knowledge of Electroconvulsive Therapy: An Exploration of Medical Students' Perspectives.

Aims: To explore knowledge and attitudes of medical students before and after exposure to a technology-enhanced learning and teaching (TELT) session about electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).

Background: Adequate knowledge of and attitudes toward ECT is essential for medical students. However, the impact of teaching on knowledge and attitudes is infrequently studied.

Identifying core global mental health professional competencies: A multi-sectoral perspective.

Concerned with sustainably alleviating mental distress and promoting the right to health worldwide, global mental health (GMH) is practised across various contexts spanning the humanitarian-development-peace nexus. The inherently intersectoral and multidisciplinary nature of GMH calls for competency frameworks and training programmes that embody diversity, decolonisation and multiprofessionalism. Existing competency frameworks have failed to capture the multi-sectoral, inter-professional nature of contemporary GMH practice.

The Barriers and Facilitators to Decentralised Nurse-Led Mental Health Service Delivery in Sierra Leone.

In 2009, 98.0% of people with mental illness in Sierra Leone were not receiving treatment, partly due to the absence of public psychiatric facilities outside the capital. In response to this situation, the Ministry of Health and Sanitation rolled out nurse-led mental health units (MHUs) to every district.

International Consortium on the Genetics of Electroconvulsive Therapy and Severe Depressive Disorders (Gen-ECT-ic).

Recent genome-wide association studies have demonstrated that the genetic burden associated with depression correlates with depression severity. Therefore, conducting genetic studies of patients at the most severe end of the depressive disorder spectrum, those with treatment-resistant depression and who are prescribed electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), could lead to a better understanding of the genetic underpinnings of depression. Despite ECT being one of the most effective forms of treatment for severe depressive disorders, it is usually placed at the end of treatment algorithms of current guidelines.

Admission to psychiatric hospital for mental illnesses 2 years prechildbirth and postchildbirth in Scotland: a health informatics approach to assessing mother and child outcomes.

Objective: To identify factors associated with: admission to a specialist mother and baby unit (MBU) and the impact of perinatal mental illness on early childhood development using a data linkage approach in the 2 years prechildbirth and postchildbirth.

Methods: Scottish maternity records (SMR02) were linked to psychiatric hospital admissions (SMR04). 3290 pregnancy-related psychiatric admissions for 1730 women were assessed.

Admission to psychiatric hospital in the early and late postpartum periods: Scottish national linkage study.

Objective: To describe weekly admission rates for affective and non-affective psychosis, major depression and other psychiatric disorders in the early and late postpartum periods. To assess the impact of socioeconomic status, age and parity on admission rates.

Methods: Scottish maternity records were linked to psychiatric hospital admissions.

Physical health indicators in major mental illness: data from the Quality and Outcome Framework in the UK.

Background: In the UK, the Quality and Outcome Framework (QOF) has specific targets for general practictioners to record body-mass index (BMI) and blood pressure (BP) in major mental illness, diabetes, and chronic kidney disease. Although incentives are given for aspects of major mental illness (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and related psychoses), barriers to care can occur. Our aim was to compare recording of specific targets for BP and BMI in individuals with major mental illness relative to diabetes and chronic kidney disease across the UK.

Depression and multimorbidity: a cross-sectional study of 1,751,841 patients in primary care.

Background: Depression is common in many chronic physical health disorders, but the nature and extent of physical health comorbidities in depression, particularly within large population-based samples of patients, and how these comorbidities relate to factors such as age, sex, and social deprivation, are unknown. We aimed to assess the nature and extent of multiple physical health comorbidities in primary care patients with depression within a large and representative Scottish dataset.

Method: This study was a cross-sectional secondary data analysis of 314 primary care practices in Scotland (from the Primary Care Clinical Informatics Unit at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, March 31, 2007), including 143,943 people with depression and 1,280,435 controls.

Physical health indicators in major mental illness: analysis of QOF data across UK general practice.

Background: The Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) has specific targets for body mass index (BMI) and blood pressure recording in major mental illness (MMI), diabetes, and chronic kidney disease (CKD). Although aspects of MMI (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and related psychoses) are incentivised, barriers to care may occur.

Aim: To compare payment, population achievement, and exception rates for blood pressure and BMI recording in MMI relative to diabetes and CKD across the UK.

Impact of socioeconomic deprivation on rate and cause of death in severe mental illness.

Background: Socioeconomic status has important associations with disease-specific mortality in the general population. Although individuals with Severe Mental Illnesses (SMI) experience significant premature mortality, the relationship between socioeconomic status and mortality in this group remains under investigated. We aimed to assess the impact of socioeconomic status on rate and cause of death in individuals with SMI (schizophrenia and bipolar disorder) relative to the local (Glasgow) and wider (Scottish) populations.

Standard cardiovascular disease risk algorithms underestimate the risk of cardiovascular disease in schizophrenia: evidence from a national primary care database.

Background: Schizophrenia is associated with increased cardiovascular mortality. Although cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk prediction algorithms are widely in the general population, their utility for patients with schizophrenia is unknown.

Methods: A primary care dataset was used to compare CVD risk scores (Joint British Societies (JBS) score), cardiovascular risk factors, rates of pre-existing CVD and age of first diagnosis of CVD for schizophrenia (n=1997) relative to population controls (n=215,165).