Mental health in Europe during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused immediate and far-reaching disruption to society, the economy, and health-care services. We synthesised evidence on the effect of the pandemic on mental health and mental health care in high-income European countries. We included 177 longitudinal and repeated cross-sectional studies comparing prevalence or incidence of mental health problems, mental health symptom severity in people with pre-existing mental health conditions, or mental health service use before versus during the pandemic, or between different timepoints of the pandemic.

Implementation strategies for telemental health: a systematic review.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a rapid shift from traditional face-to-face care provision towards delivering mental health care remotely through telecommunications, often referred to as telemental health care. However, the manner and extent of telemental health implementation have varied considerably across settings and areas, and substantial barriers are encountered. There is, therefore, a need to identify what works best for service users and staff and establish the key mechanisms for efficient integration into routine care.

Synthesis of the Evidence on What Works for Whom in Telemental Health: Rapid Realist Review.

Background: Telemental health (delivering mental health care via video calls, telephone calls, or SMS text messages) is becoming increasingly widespread. Telemental health appears to be useful and effective in providing care to some service users in some settings, especially during an emergency restricting face-to-face contact, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. However, important limitations have been reported, and telemental health implementation risks the reinforcement of pre-existing inequalities in service provision.

What has changed in the experiences of people with mental health problems during the COVID-19 pandemic: a coproduced, qualitative interview study.

Purpose: We sought to understand how the experiences of people in the UK with pre-existing mental health conditions had developed during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: In September-October 2020, we interviewed adults with mental health conditions pre-dating the pandemic, whom we had previously interviewed 3 months earlier. Participants had been recruited through online advertising and voluntary sector community organisations.

Emerging models and trends in mental health crisis care in England: a national investigation of crisis care systems.

Background: Inpatient psychiatric care is unpopular and expensive, and development and evaluation of alternatives is a long-standing policy and research priority around the world. In England, the three main models documented over the past fifty years (teams offering crisis assessment and treatment at home; acute day units; and residential crisis services in the community) have recently been augmented by several new service models. These are intended to enhance choice and flexibility within catchment area acute care systems, but remain largely undocumented in the research literature.

Service user experiences and views regarding telemental health during the COVID-19 pandemic: A co-produced framework analysis.

Background: The prominence of telemental health, including providing care by video call and telephone, has greatly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there are clear variations in uptake and acceptability, and concerns that digital exclusion may exacerbate previous inequalities in access to good quality care. Greater understanding is needed of how service users experience telemental health, and what determines whether they engage and find it acceptable.

A systematic review and meta-analysis of group peer support interventions for people experiencing mental health conditions.

Background: Peer support is being integrated within mental health services to further the development of a recovery approach. However, the most effective models and formats of intervention delivery are unknown. We conducted this systematic review and meta-analysis to determine the effectiveness of peer support for improving outcomes for people with lived experience of mental health conditions, when delivered as group interventions.

Do carers of adolescents at first episode psychosis have distinctive psychological needs? A pilot exploration.

Background: Carers of patients experiencing first episode psychosis (FEP) are at an increased risk of mental and physical health problems themselves. However, little is known about how the psychological needs of carers may differ between those caring for an adolescent versus an adult who has FEP.

Aims: This pilot study aimed to explore any differences in the psychological needs of carers caring for adolescents versus adults with FEP.

Understanding increasing rates of psychiatric hospital detentions in England: development and preliminary testing of an explanatory model.

Background: The steep rise in the rate of psychiatric hospital detentions in England is poorly understood.

Aims: To identify explanations for the rise in detentions in England since 1983; to test their plausibility and support from evidence; to develop an explanatory model for the rise in detentions.

Method: Hypotheses to explain the rise in detentions were identified from previous literature and stakeholder consultation.

First episode psychosis: A comparison of caregiving appraisals in parents caring for the same child.

Background: The first onset of psychosis can be a traumatic event for diagnosed individuals but can also impact negatively on their families. Little is known about how parents of the same child make sense of the illness. In mothers and fathers caring for the same child with early psychosis, the current study assessed their similarities and differences in key areas of their caregiving role.

Carer subjective burden after first-episode psychosis: Types and predictors. A multilevel statistical approach.

Background: Carer burden at first-episode psychosis is common and adds to the multiple other psychiatric and psychological problems that beset new carers; yet, knowledge of the factors that predict carer burden is limited.

Aim: This study sought to investigate the types and predictors of carer burden at first-episode psychosis in the largest, most ethnically diverse and comprehensively characterised sample to date.

Method: This study involved a cross-sectional survey of carers of people with first-episode psychosis presenting to Harrow and Hillingdon Early Intervention in Psychosis service between 2011 and 2017.

Engineered feature used to enhance gardening at a 3800-year-old site on the Pacific Northwest Coast.

Humans use a variety of deliberate means to modify biologically rich environs in pursuit of resource stability and predictability. Empirical evidence suggests that ancient hunter-gatherer populations engineered ecological niches to enhance the productivity and availability of economically significant resources. An archaeological excavation of a 3800-year-old wetland garden in British Columbia, Canada, provides the first direct evidence of an engineered feature designed to facilitate wild plant food production among mid-to-late Holocene era complex fisher-hunter-gatherers of the Northwest Coast.

The wisdom of elders: Inuvialuit social memories of continuity and change in the twentieth century.

The Inuvialuit of the Canadian Western Arctic are no strangers to change. From the arrival of whalers ca. 1890, they underwent a century of monumental societal upheaval.