Publications by authors named "Whitty P"

Background: Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive breast cancer subtype with a poor prognosis. Doxorubicin is part of standard curative therapy for TNBC, but chemotherapy resistance remains an important clinical challenge. Bocodepsin (OKI-179) is a small molecule class I histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor that promotes apoptosis in TNBC preclinical models.

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Article Synopsis
  • An average of 1300 adults experience First Episode Psychosis (FEP) in Ireland yearly, with a local Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP) program launched in Dublin in 2012 to improve treatment outcomes.
  • A cross-sectional study from 2016 to 2022 showed that significantly more service users received Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and family therapy post-EIP compared to pre-EIP, with notable improvements in physical health monitoring as well.
  • The findings suggest that dedicating multidisciplinary teams to EIP enhances adherence to treatment guidelines, benefiting those with psychosis.
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Upon glucose starvation, S. cerevisiae shows a dramatic alteration in transcription, resulting in wide-scale repression of most genes and activation of some others. This coincides with an arrest of cellular proliferation.

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Objectives: The North East of England, ranked as having the highest poverty levels and the lowest health outcomes, has the highest cardiovascular disease (CVD) premature mortality. This study aimed to compare CVD-related conditions and risk factors for deprived practice populations with other general practice (GP) populations in Northern England to England overall, before and during COVID-19 to identify changes in recorded CVD-related risk factors and conditions and evidence-based lipid prescribing behaviour.

Design: A population-based observational study of aggregated practice-level data obtained from publicly accessible data sets.

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Introduction: Hyperlipidaemia contributes a significant proportion of modifiable cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk, which is a condition that disproportionally affects disadvantaged socioeconomic communities, with death rates in the most deprived areas being four times higher than those in the least deprived. With the national CVD Prevention programme being delivered to minimise risk factors, no evidence is available on what has been implemented in primary care for deprived populations. This study describes the protocol for the development of a tailored intervention aiming to optimise lipid management in primary care settings to help reduce inequalities in CVD risks and improve outcomes in deprived communities.

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This is a case report on a 57-year-old lady who presented to the Psychiatry Department of Tallaght Hospital after being referred by Neurology Department. She was initially attending Neurology Department for idiopathic Parkinson's disease which was later refuted as there was no objective evidence of response to treatment. She attended the A&E department with altered consciousness and headache, but her computed tomography of the brain was normal, and was diagnosed with migraine.

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Introduction: N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor antibody (NMDAR-Ab) encephalitis consensus criteria has recently been defined. We aimed to examine the prevalence of NMDAR-Ab encephalitis in patients with first episode psychosis (FEP) and treatment resistant schizophrenia (TRS) on clozapine, using clinical investigations, antibody testing and to retrospectively apply diagnostic consensus criteria.

Methods: Adult (18-65 years old) cases of FEP meeting inclusion criteria were recruited over three years and assessed using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV disorders (SCID).

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Background: The North of England, particularly the North East (NE), has worse health (e.g. 2 years lower life expectancy) and higher health inequalities compared to the rest of England.

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Objective: In Ireland, National Clinical Programmes are being established to improve and standardise patient care throughout the Health Service Executive. In line with internationally recognised guidelines on the treatment of first episode psychosis the Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP) programme is being drafted with a view to implementation by mental health services across the country. We undertook a review of patients presenting with a first episode of psychosis to the Dublin Southwest Mental Health Service before the implementation of the EIP.

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Objectives: To establish if the relatively low rate of involuntary psychiatric admission in a suburban area between 2007 and 2011 was maintained in 2014/2015, and explore key correlates of involuntary status.

Methods: We used existing hospital records and data sources to extract rates and selected potential correlates of voluntary and involuntary admission in south west Dublin (catchment area: 273 419 people) over 18 months in 2014/2015 and compared these with published national data from the census and Health Research Board.

Results: The rate of involuntary admission in the suburban area studied between 2007 and 2011 was 33.

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Objective: There is a dearth of information relating to the prevalence of housing needs among psychiatric in-patients in Ireland. Most of the information we have to date emerged as a result of attempts to plan for the closure of old psychiatric hospitals and inappropriate community residences. This study sought to identify the prevalence of housing needs among in-patients in the acute psychiatric unit in Tallaght Hospital.

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Objective: International figures for involuntary admissions vary widely. Differences in legislation, professionals' ethics and public attitudes towards risk have been known to influence this rate. Comparing involuntary admission rates in different parts of the same country can help control for variability found between international studies.

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Low levels of literacy in early childhood can have lasting effects on children's educational and intellectual development. Many countries have implemented newborn literacy programs designed to teach parents pre-literacy promoting activities to share with their children. We conducted 2 quasi-experimental studies using 1) a pre-test/post-test design and 2) a non-equivalent control group design to examine the effect of newborn literacy programs on parents' self-reported literacy intentions/behaviors, values toward literacy, and parent-child interactions.

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Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine a bold and ambitious scheme known as the North East transformation system (NETS). The principal aim of the NETS is the achievement of a step-change in the quality of health services delivered to people living in the North East region of England. The paper charts the origins of the NETS and its early journey before describing what happened to it when the UK coalition government published its proposals for unexpected major structural change in the NHS.

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The research project 'An Evaluation of Transformational Change in NHS North East' examines the progress and success of National Health Service (NHS) organisations in north east England in implementing and embedding the North East Transformation System (NETS), a region-wide programme to improve healthcare quality and safety, and to reduce waste, using a combination of Vision, Compact, and Lean-based Method. This paper concentrates on findings concerning the role of leadership in enabling tranformational change, based on semi-structured interviews with a mix of senior NHS managers and quality improvement staff in 14 study sites. Most interviewees felt that implementing the NETS requires committed, stable leadership, attention to team-building across disciplines and leadership development at many levels.

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Background: The duration of untreated psychosis is well recognised as an independent predictor of symptomatic and functional outcome in the short term and has facilitated the development of worldwide early intervention programmes. However, the extent and mechanisms by which it might influence prognosis beyond a decade remain poorly understood.

Methods: The authors examined the relationship between duration of untreated psychosis and outcome 12years after a first episode of psychosis and assessed whether its relationship with function is affected by symptoms in a prospective, 12-year follow-up of an epidemiologically-based inception cohort.

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Objectives: Neuroimaging is being used increasingly in the investigation of psychiatric disorders. Previous studies have found abnormalities in about two-thirds of all scans done in psychiatry. The aim of our study was to investigate the use of CT and MRI in the management of inpatients in psychiatry department Adelaide & Meath hospital, Tallaght and to examine the relationship between diagnosis and abnormalities seen on scans.

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Purpose: Impaired insight is commonly seen in psychosis and some studies have proposed that is a biologically based deficit. Support for this view comes from the excess of neurological soft signs (NSS) observed in patients with psychoses and their neural correlates which demonstrate a degree of overlap with the regions of interest implicated in neuroimaging studies of insight. The aim was to examine the relationship between NSS and insight in a sample of 241 first-episode psychosis patients.

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There is a need to identify clinically useful biomarkers in major depressive disorder (MDD). In this context the functional connectivity of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) to other areas of the affect regulation circuit is of interest. The aim of this study was to identify neural changes during antidepressant treatment and correlates associated with the treatment outcome.

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Objectives: Despite the clinical guidelines regarding the use of combined antipsychotics and the limited evidence for its benefits, use remains high in psychiatric practice. The aim of this study was to examine prescribing practices and investigate reasons for initiating and continuing combined antipsychotics in stable psychiatric illnesses.

Method: A cross-sectional case record survey of antipsychotic prescribing practices in a community psychiatric rehabilitation service.

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Tardive dyskinesia is a neurological disorder characterised by involuntary and purposeless movements affecting any part of the body. These movements typically occur in the oro-facial area and the patient is usually unaware of them. There are inconsistent findings in the literature on the risk factors for developing tardive dyskinesia.

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Objectives: This study examined concurrent associations and predictors at first indication of nonadherence to antipsychotic medication four years after a first episode of psychosis.

Methods: A prospective cohort of 171 patients in urban Ireland with a first episode of psychosis was followed up four years after inception (follow-up primary analysis, N=84; secondary analysis, N=104).

Results: At the four-year follow-up 76% were adherent and 24% were not.

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Introduction: Substance misuse (SM) (drug/alcohol dependence or abuse) in psychotic illness is an increasingly recognized problem. We aimed to estimate the prevalence and examine the influence of SM on age at onset of psychosis and psychopathology among patients with first-episode psychosis.

Method: One hundred seventy-one consecutive patients with first-episode psychosis were assessed.

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