Previous studies have not investigated response rates after electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in patients with non-psychotic treatment-resistant depression (TRD).

To assess and compare the response rate of ECT for patients with TRD and non-TRD, in a large and clinically representative patient sample.

Patients aged ≥18 years, who were treated for a unipolar, non-psychotic depressive episode with at least one ECT session as part of a first-time, index ECT series between 1 January 2011 and 31 December 2017 were included from the Swedish National Quality Register for ECT. Patients who had initiated a third consecutive trial of antidepressants or add-on medications before start of ECT were classified as having TRD. Patients not meeting criteria for TRD were classified as non-TRD. The main outcome was response to ECT according to the Clinical Global Impressions – Improvement Scale (CGI-I), scored as 1 or 2 (‘very much’ or ‘much improved’ after ECT, respectively). Logistic regression was used to compare outcome measures between TRD and non-TRD, adjusting for potential confounders.

A total of 4244 patients were included. Of these, 1121 patients had TRD and 3123 patients had non-TRD. The CGI-I response rate was 65.9% in the TRD group compared with 75.9% in the non-TRD group (adjusted odds ratio 0.64, 95% CI 0.54–0.75). Older age and more severe depression were predictors of response in patients with TRD.

A clear majority of patients with TRD, as well as patients with non-TRD, responded to ECT, although the response rate was somewhat lower for TRD.

Between 2018–2021 there was a downward trend in study leave applications and the total spending on trainee study leave activities. There was concern that trainees may not be maximising educational opportunities. The authors were aware of anecdotal evidence indicating barriers to applying for study leave and therefore sought to objectively explore this. We aimed to evaluate qualitative and quantitative responses amongst psychiatric trainees within the West Midlands deanery regarding study leave applications. We also endeavoured to identify positive aspects and barriers, to improve knowledge and confidence in the process and identify areas for improvement in making the system more accessible.

The authors met with Health Education West Midlands to clarify current processes and gather objective data regarding study leave applications between 2018 and 2021. A survey was distributed to all Psychiatric trainees in the West Midlands in December 2021. The survey was open for three weeks and contained closed and open questions. Data were analysed and a thematic analysis was completed independently by the authors to allow for triangulation.

There were 62 responses (response rate of 27%) from trainees ranging from CT1-ST7+. 55% were unclear about the study leave application process, and of these, 79% said this had prevented them from applying. Only 37% of trainees found the process ‘very’ or ‘moderately easy’, with 23% finding it ‘very difficult’. When exploring barriers, worryingly 69% of trainees did not know where to find the list of approved courses. Other themes included too many signatures being required, long delays in forms being returned and money being reimbursed.

The majority of respondents were unclear about the study leave process or found it difficult. This acts as a barrier to application in the majority of cases and may have a knock-on effect on the overall quality of training. By identifying these barriers, we are now able to address these more directly.

The results were presented at a deanery wide level leading to a better understanding of the reduction in spending of study leave funding. Phase two of the project will see the introduction of an electronic application system, aiming for an easier and shorter process, in addition to creating consistency across trusts. There may have been some confounding factors, such as COVID-19 that may have contributed to the decline in study budget being utilised.

Little is known about the experiences of parents who are in receipt of in-patient psychiatric care or about what interventions are employed to support them in their parenting role.

The objective of the current study is to review two complementary areas of research: (a) research examining interventions developed to support the parent–child relationship within these settings; and (b) research focused on the experience of parents in in-patient settings.

For studies reporting on parents’ experience, qualitative accounts of past or present psychiatric in-patients (child aged 1–18 years) were included. For intervention studies, the intervention had to focus on supporting the parenting role and/or the parent–child dyad of parents (child aged 1–18 years) in current receipt of in-patient care. Four bibliographic databases (PubMed, SCOPOS, Web of Science and PsychINFO) were searched for relevant published and unpublished literature from 1 January 1980 to 26 July 2022. Intervention studies were appraised using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. Qualitative papers were assessed using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme tool. Data were extracted using tools designed for the study. Qualitative data were synthesised using thematic analysis. The protocol was registered with the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (reference CRD42022309065).

Twenty-four papers (eight intervention studies and 16 studies examining parent experience) were included in the review. In-patient parents commonly reported hospital admission as having a negative impact on their parenting. Very few robust reports of interventions designed to support parents in receipt of psychiatric in-patient care were found.

Despite the identified need for support by parents who are receiving in-patient care, there is currently no intervention of this nature running in the UK health service.

In the connected world, although societies are not directly involved in a military conflict, they are exposed to media reports of violence.

We assessed the effects of such exposures on mental health in Germany during the military conflict in Ukraine.

We used the German population-based cohort for digital health research, DigiHero, launching a survey on the eighth day of the Russo-Ukrainian war. Of the 27 509 cohort participants from the general population, 19 444 (70.7%) responded within 17 days. We measured mental health and fear of the impact of war compared with other fears (natural disasters or health-related).

In a subsample of 4441 participants assessed twice, anxiety in the population (measured by the Generalised Anxiety Disorder-7 screener) was higher in the first weeks of war than during the strongest COVID-19 restrictions. Anxiety was elevated across the whole age spectrum, and the mean was above the cut-off for mild anxiety. Over 95% of participants expressed various degrees of fear of the impact of war, whereas the percentage for other investigated fears was 0.47–0.82. A one-point difference in the fear of the impact of war was associated with a 2.5 point (95% CI 2.42–2.58) increase in anxiety (11.9% of the maximum anxiety score). For emotional distress, the increase was 0.67 points (0.66–0.68) (16.75% of the maximum score).

The population in Germany reacted to the Russo-Ukrainian war with substantial distress, exceeding reactions during the strongest restrictions in the COVID-19 pandemic. Fear of the impact of war was associated with worse mental health.

Patient and public involvement (PPI) groups can provide valuable input to create more accessible study documents with less jargon. However, we don't know whether this procedure improves accessibility for potential participants.

We assessed whether participant information sheets were rated as more accessible after PPI review and which aspects of information sheets and study design were important to mental health patients compared with a control group with no mental health service use.

This was a double-blind quasi-experimental study using a mixed-methods explanatory design. Patients and control participants quantitatively rated pre- and post-review documents. Semi-structured interviews were thematically analysed to gain qualitative feedback on opinions of information sheets and studies. Two-way multivariate analysis of variance was used to detect differences in ratings between pre- and post-review documents.

We found no significant (P < 0.05) improvements in patient (n = 15) or control group (n = 21) ratings after PPI review. Patients and controls both rated PPI as of low importance in studies and considered the study rationale as most important. However, PPI was often misunderstood, with participants believing that it meant lay patients would take over the design and administration of the study. Qualitative findings highlight the importance of clear, friendly and visually appealing information sheets.

Researchers should be aware of what participants want to know about so they can create information sheets addressing these priorities, for example, explaining why the research is necessary. PPI is poorly understood by the wider population and efforts must be made to increase diversity in participation.

Women and gender-diverse people with early psychosis are at risk for suboptimal sexual health outcomes, yet little research has explored their sexual health experiences.

This study explored sexual health experiences and related priorities among women and gender-diverse people with early psychosis, to identify opportunities for improvements in sexual health and well-being.

Semi-structured individual qualitative interviews explored how patient participants (n = 19, aged 18–31 years, cisgender and transgender women and non-binary individuals) receiving clinical care from early psychosis programmes in Ontario, Canada, experienced their sexual health, including sexual function and behaviour. Thematic analysis was conducted, with triangulation from interviews/focus groups with clinicians (n = 36) who provide sexual and mental healthcare for this population.

Three key themes were identified based on patient interviews: theme 1 was the impact of psychotic illness and its treatments on sexual function and activity, including variable changes in sex drive, attitudes and behaviours during acute psychosis, vulnerability to trauma and medications; theme 2 related to intimacy and sexual relationships in the context of psychosis, with bidirectional effects between relationships and mental health; and theme 3 comprised autonomy, identity and intersectional considerations, including gender, sexuality, culture and religion, which interplay with psychosis and sexual health. Clinicians raised each of these priority areas, but emphasised risk prevention relative to patients’ more holistic view of their sexual health and well-being.

Women and non-binary people with early psychosis have wide-ranging sexual health priorities, affecting many facets of their lives. Clinical care should incorporate this knowledge to optimise sexual health and well-being in this population.

Severe mental illness (SMI) is associated with significant morbidity. Frailty combines biological ageing, comorbidity and psychosocial factors and can predict adverse health outcomes. Emerging evidence indicates that frailty is higher in individuals with SMI than in the general population, although studies have been limited by sample size.

To describe the prevalence of frailty in people with SMI in a large cohort using three different frailty measures and examine the impact of demographic and sociodemographic variables.

The UK Biobank survey data, which included individuals aged 37–73 years from England, Scotland and Wales from 2006 to 2010, with linked in-patient hospital episodes, were utilised. The prevalence of frailty in individuals with and without SMI was assessed through three frailty measures: frailty index, physical frailty phenotype (PFP) and Hospital Frailty Risk Score (HFRS). Stratified analysis and dichotomous logistic regression were conducted.

A frailty index could be calculated for 99.5% of the 502 412 UK Biobank participants and demonstrated greater prevalence of frailty in women and an increase with age. The prevalence of frailty for those with SMI was 3.19% (95% CI 3.0–3.4), 4.2% (95% CI 3.8–4.7) and 18% (95% CI 15–23) using the frailty index, PFP and HFRS respectively. The prevalence ratio was between 3 and 18 times higher than in those without SMI.

As a measure, frailty captures the known increase in morbidity associated with SMI and may potentially allow for earlier identification of those who will benefit from targeted interventions.

The Royal College of Psychiatry introduced a new postgraduate training curriculum in August 2022. One of the main changes is the introduction of a new collaborative tool between supervisor and trainee, the placement-specific personal development plan (PSPDP). The aim of this project is to locally explore trainee's views and experiences with the PSPDP.

We explored the views and experiences of seven psychiatry trainees within the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust in a single 60-minute focus group, co-facilitated by two authors over Microsoft Teams. The participants were purposively identified to have started core and higher training under the new curricula and a snowballing approach was used to recruit them. The data were recorded, transcribed, and analysed in line with ethical guidelines. The analysis was done by using Clarke and Braun's approach to thematic analysis.

Three overarching themes were identified:

1. 1. Positives of using a collaborative tool with a psychiatric supervisor (PS),

2. 2. Challenges in implementation and

3. 3. Trainees’ perspectives on directions forward.

The most notable subtheme of theme one was the improved curricular alignment between learning opportunities, curriculum content, and assessment tools. As one participant mentioned: “When we were going through [the PSPDP], it definitely guided us, what we wanted to (…) get out of this placement in particular, and also the kind of workplace-based assessments needed.”. The time-effective and structured approach to learning, regular progress follow-up, as well as improved motivation to engage with the placement were further subthemes mentioned. Examples of subthemes emerging from theme two were lack of PS knowledge about the PSPDP, as well as lack of training and information for trainees. Participants commented that “supervisors really didn't know what they were supposed to do” and that “the information [shared during induction] was outdated”. One example of subthemes from theme three was the need for additional training both for trainees and PSs. As one participant mentioned: “Training is required for supervisors (…) and for us as well to get really used to the system. Because it's a good system if we know how to use it.”

To the best of our knowledge this is the first study exploring trainees’ views on the new PSPDP. Whilst trainees appreciated the potential benefits of working through the PSPDP together with their supervisor, significant challenges remained and may hinder its meaningful use. Our next steps are designing and running a hybrid questionnaire to gather views from a larger sample.

Mental health services are encouraged to use language consistent with principles of recovery-oriented practice. This study presents a novel approach for identifying whether clinical documentation contains recovery-oriented rehabilitation language, and evaluates an intervention to improve the language used within a community-based rehabilitation team.

This is a pilot study of training to enhance recovery-oriented rehabilitation language written in care review summaries, as measured through a text-based analysis of language used in mental health clinical documentation.

Eleven case managers participated in a programme that included instruction in recovery-oriented rehabilitation principles. Outcomes were measured with automated textual analysis of clinical documentation, using a custom-built dictionary of rehabilitation-consistent, person-centred and pejorative terms. Automated analyses were run on Konstanz Information Miner (KNIME), an open-source data analytics platform. Differences in the frequency of term categories in 50 pre-training and 77 post-training documents were analysed with inferential statistics.

The average percentage of sentences with recovery-oriented rehabilitation terms increased from 37% before the intervention to 48% afterward, a relative increase of 28% (P < 0.001). There was no significant change in use of person-centred or pejorative terms, possibly because of a relatively high frequency of person-centred language (22% of sentences) and low use of pejorative language (2.3% of sentences) at baseline.

This computer-driven textual analysis method identified improvements in recovery-oriented rehabilitation language following training. Our study suggests that brief interventions can affect the language of clinical documentation, and that automated text-analysis may represent a promising approach for rapidly assessing recovery-oriented rehabilitation language in mental health services.

Cross-sectional studies have shown that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the mental health of healthcare staff. However, it is less well understood how working over the long term in successive COVID-19 waves affects staff well-being.

To identify subpopulations within the health and social care staff workforce with differentiated trajectories of mental health symptoms during phases of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 Staff Wellbeing Survey assessed health and social care staff well-being within an area of the UK at four time points, separated by 3-month intervals, spanning November 2020 to August 2021.

Growth mixture models were performed on the depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder longitudinal data. Two class solutions provided the best fit for all models. The vast majority of the workforce were best represented by the low-symptom class trajectory, where by symptoms were consistently below the clinical cut-off for moderate-to-severe symptoms. A sizable minority (13–16%) were categorised as being in the high-symptom class, a group who had symptom levels in the moderate-to-severe range throughout the peaks and troughs of the pandemic. In the depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder models, the high-symptom class perceived communication from their organisation to be less effective than the low-symptom class.

This research identified a group of health service staff who reported persistently high mental health symptoms during the pandemic. This group of staff may well have particular needs in terms of the provision of well-being support services.

Cost-effective treatments are needed to reduce the burden of depression. One way to improve the cost-effectiveness of psychotherapy might be to increase session frequency, but keep the total number of sessions constant.

To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of twice-weekly compared with once-weekly psychotherapy sessions after 12 months, from a societal perspective.

An economic evaluation was conducted alongside a randomised controlled trial comparing twice-weekly versus once-weekly sessions of psychotherapy (cognitive–behavioural therapy or interpersonal psychotherapy) for depression. Missing data were handled by multiple imputation. Statistical uncertainty was estimated with bootstrapping and presented with cost-effectiveness acceptability curves.

Differences between the two groups in depressive symptoms, physical and social functioning, and quality-adjusted life-years (QALY) at 12-month follow-up were small and not statistically significant. Total societal costs in the twice-weekly session group were higher, albeit not statistically significantly so, than in the once-weekly session group (mean difference €2065, 95% CI −686 to 5146). The probability that twice-weekly sessions are cost-effective compared with once-weekly sessions was 0.40 at a ceiling ratio of €1000 per point improvement in Beck Depression Inventory-II score, 0.32 at a ceiling ratio of €50 000 per QALY gained, 0.23 at a ceiling ratio of €1000 per point improvement in physical functioning score and 0.62 at a ceiling ratio of €1000 per point improvement in social functioning score.

Based on the current results, twice-weekly sessions of psychotherapy for depression are not cost-effective over the long term compared with once-weekly sessions.

Parent and child mental health has suffered during the pandemic and transition phase. Structured and shared parenting may be intervention targets beneficial to families who are struggling with parent or child mental health challenges.

First, we investigated associations between structured and shared parenting and parent depression symptoms. Second, we investigated associations between structured and shared parenting and depression, hyperactivity/inattention and irritability symptoms in children.

A total of 1027 parents in two-parent households (4797 observations total; 85.1% mothers) completed online surveys about themselves and their children (aged 2–18 years) from April 2020 to July 2022. Structured parenting and shared parenting responsibilities were assessed from April 2020 to November 2021. Symptoms of parent depression, child depression, child hyperactivity and inattention, child irritability, and child emotional and conduct problems were assessed repeatedly (one to 14 times; median of four times) from April 2020 to July 2022.

Parents who reported higher levels of shared parenting responsibilities had lower depression symptoms (β = −0.09 to −0.32, all P < 0.01) longitudinally. Parents who reported higher levels of shared parenting responsibilities had children with fewer emotional problems (ages 2–5 years; β = −0.07, P < 0.05), fewer conduct problems (ages 2–5 years; β = −0.09, P < 0.01) and less irritability (ages 13–18 years; β = −0.27, P < 0.001) longitudinally. Structured parenting was associated with fewer conduct problems (ages 2–5 years; β = −0.05, P < 0.05).

Shared parenting is beneficial for parent and child mental health, even under chaotic or inflexible life conditions. Structured parenting is beneficial for younger children.

Little is known about the reasons for suicidal behaviour in Africa, and communities’ perception of suicide prevention. A contextualised understanding of these reasons is important in guiding the implementation of potential suicide prevention interventions in specific settings.

To understand ideas, experiences and opinions on reasons contributing to suicidal behaviour in the Coast region of Kenya, and provide recommendations for suicide prevention.

We conducted a qualitative study with various groups of key informants residing in the Coast region of Kenya, using in-depth interviews. Audio-recorded interviews were transcribed and translated from the local language before thematic inductive content analysis.

From the 25 in-depth interviews, we identified four key themes as reasons given for suicidal behaviour: interpersonal and relationship problems, financial and economic difficulties, mental health conditions and religious and cultural influences. These reasons were observed to be interrelated with each other and well-aligned to the suggested recommendations for suicide prevention. We found six key recommendations from our thematic content analysis: (a) increasing access to counselling and social support, (b) improving mental health awareness and skills training, (c) restriction of suicide means, (d) decriminalisation of suicide, (e) economic and education empowerment and (f) encouraging religion and spirituality.

The reasons for suicidal behaviour are comparable with high-income countries, but suggested prevention strategies are more contextualised to our setting. A multifaceted approach in preventing suicide in (coastal) Kenya is warranted based on the varied reasons suggested. Community-based interventions will likely improve and increase access to suicide prevention in this study area.

Assessing suicidal behaviours among students would help to understand the burden and enhance suicide prevention.

We aimed to determine the prevalence of suicidal behaviour among students living in Muslim-majority countries.

We followed Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. A systematic search was conducted in Medline, EMBASE and PsycINFO. Meta-analyses were performed to pool the lifetime, 1-year and point prevalence rates for suicidal ideation, plans and attempts.

From 80 studies, 98 separate samples were included in this analysis. The majority (n = 49) were from the Eastern Mediterranean, and 61 samples were of university students. The pooled prevalence of suicidal ideation was 21.9% (95% CI 17.4%–27.1%) for lifetime, 13.4% (95% CI 11.1%–16.1%) for the past year and 6.4% (95% CI 4.5%–9%) for current. The pooled prevalence of suicide plans was 6.4% (95% CI 3.7%–11%) for lifetime, 10.7% (95% CI 9.1%–12.4%) for the past year and 4.1% (95% CI 2.7%–6.2%) for current. The pooled prevalence of suicide attempts was 6.6% (95% CI 5.4%–8%) for lifetime and 4.9% (95% CI 3.6%–6.5%) for the past year. The lifetime prevalence of suicidal ideation was highest (46.2%) in South-East Asia, but the 12-month prevalence was highest (16.8%) in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The study revealed notably high rates of suicidal behaviours among students living in Muslim-majority countries. However, the quality of studies, differences in regional and cultural factors, stages of studentship and methods of measurement should be considered when generalising the study results.

Differences in static and dynamic resting-state functional connectivity have been identified in patients with schizophrenia, individuals at high risk of psychosis and those with psychotic-like experiences. Analysis of dynamic connectivity is important to understand the temporal fluctuations in functional connectivity. Studies of dynamic functional connectivity have been conducted using methods such as the sliding-window technique and co-activation patterns (CAPs). In this study edge-centric analysis has been used to examine differences in time-varying connectivity in patients with schizophrenia compared to healthy controls. This method overcomes some of the limitations of other methods as it has higher temporal resolution and unwraps the data without applying additional modelling or requiring user-defined specification of parameters.

We analysed resting-state fMRI data from 67 patients with schizophrenia and 81 healthy controls using the Center for Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) dataset. The edge-time series for these subjects was calculated by omitting the averaging step when calculating the correlation between time series at each node. This effectively unwrapped the functional connectivity correlations and produced a measure of cofluctuation at each timeframe. The edge time series can be aggregated into a single measure of dynamic whole brain co-fluctuation by calculating the root sum square (RSS). We analysed the frequency and amplitude of the high amplitude peaks of cofluctuation and the patterns of activity seen during peaks and troughs.

The results showed that mean peak amplitude was lower in patients with schizophrenia compared to controls (t-stat= -3.13, p = 0.0021). Patients with schizophrenia also had significantly less frequent peaks (t-stat= -2.80, p = 0.0058).The pattern of activation at peaks in controls was more homogenous between control subjects compared to patients with schizophrenia. We identified networks that were significantly less activated in patients than in controls during peaks, troughs and transitionary time points.

This study suggests that in patients with schizophrenia the whole brain cofluctuations during resting-state are less frequent and lower in amplitude. This is in keeping with previous studies which have identified that patients with schizophrenia spend significantly less time than healthy controls in states of large-scale connectivity. Further studies looking at larger transdiagnostic samples and antipsychotic naïve patients will be important to build on these results.

A critical step in research on the epidemiology of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in low-resource settings is the validation of brief self-reported psychometric tools available in the public domain, such as the Impact Event Scale – Revised (IES-R).

We aimed to investigate the validity of the IES-R in a primary healthcare setting in Harare, Zimbabwe.

We analysed data from a survey of 264 consecutively sampled adults (mean age 38 years; 78% female). We estimated the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve and sensitivity, specificity and likelihood ratios for different cut-off points of the IES-R, against a diagnosis of PTSD made using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV. We performed factor analysis to evaluate construct validity of the IES-R.

The prevalence of PTSD was 23.9% (95% CI 18.9–29.5). The area under the curve for the IES-R was 0.90. At a cut-off of ≥47, the sensitivity of the IES-R to detect PTSD was 84.1 (95% CI 72.7–92.1) and specificity was 81.1 (95% CI 75.0–86.3). Positive and negative likelihood ratios were 4.45 and 0.20, respectively. Factor analysis revealed a two-factor solution, with both factors showing good internal consistency (Cronbach's factor-1 α = 0.95, factor-2 α = 0.76). In a post hoc analysis, we found the brief six-item IES-6 also performed well, with an area under the curve of 0.87 and optimal cut-off of 15.

The IES-R and IES-6 had good psychometric properties and performed well for indicating possible PTSD, but at higher cut-off points than those recommended in the Global North.

Refugees and asylum seekers (RAS) in Germany need tailored and resource-oriented mental healthcare interventions.

To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of group psychotherapy for RAS with moderate depressive symptoms.

This is a post hoc cost-effectiveness analysis of Empowerment group psychotherapy that was embedded in a stratified stepped and collaborative care model (SCCM) from the multicentre randomised controlled MEHIRA trial. One hundred and forty-nine participants were randomly assigned to SCCM or treatment as usual (TAU) and underwent Empowerment (i.e. level 3 of the SCCM for adults) or TAU. Effects were measured with the nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and quality adjusted life-years (QALY) post-intervention. Health service and intervention costs were measured. Incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICER) were estimated and net monetary benefit (NMB) regressions with 95% confidence intervals were performed. Cost-effectiveness was ascertained for different values of willingness to pay (WTP) using cost-effectiveness acceptability curves for probable scenarios. Trial registration number: NCT03109028 on ClinicalTrials.gov.

Health service use costs were significantly lower for Empowerment than TAU after 1 year. Intervention costs were on average €409.6. Empowerment led to a significant change in PHQ-9 scores but not QALY. Bootstrapped mean ICER indicated cost-effectiveness according to PHQ-9 and varied considerably for QALY in the base case. NMB for a unit reduction in PHQ-9 score at WTP of €0 was €354.3 (€978.5 to −€269.9). Results were confirmed for different scenarios and varying WTP thresholds.

The Empowerment intervention was cost-effective in refugees with moderate depressive symptoms regarding the clinical outcome and led to a reduction in direct healthcare consumption. Concerning QALYs, there was a lack of confidence that Empowerment differed from TAU.

Community treatment order (CTO) use in Australia and New Zealand ranges from less than 40 per 100 000 population in Western Australia and Canterbury to over 100 per 100 000 in Victoria, South Australia and Waitemata. Recent publications on CTO use now permit a meta-regression to investigate whether differences in CTO use by jurisdiction affect either the possible predictors or outcomes of CTOs.

To assess whether factors associated with CTO placement or subsequent outcomes vary by rates of use.

A systematic search of PubMed/Medline, Embase, CINAHL, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and PsycINFO for any Australian or New Zealand study comparing CTO cases with controls receiving voluntary psychiatric treatment. This study was prospectively registered with PROSPERO (protocol registration number: CRD42022351500).

There were 35 articles from 16 studies identified in the search, plus unpublished data from a further study. Of these, 29 publications were included in meta-analyses. Two were from New Zealand. People who were male, single and not engaged in work, study or home duties were significantly more likely to be on CTOs. In addition, those from migrant backgrounds were 47% more likely to be on an order. On meta-regression, cases in jurisdictions with higher CTO rates had higher proportions of females or individuals with diagnoses other than non-affective psychoses. High-use jurisdictions were also less likely to show reductions in readmission rates or bed-days.

There are marked differences in the possible predictors and outcomes of CTO placement between high- and low-use jurisdictions in Australia and New Zealand. These findings may have implications elsewhere and indicate that better-targeted CTO placement might improve outcomes.