The aim of this study was to assess barriers and facilitators in the pathways toward specialist care for eating disorders (EDs).

Eleven ED services located in seven European countries recruited patients with an ED. Clinicians administered an adapted version of the World Health Organization “Encounter Form,” a standardized tool to assess the pathways to care. The unadjusted overall time needed to access the ED unit was described using the Kaplan–Meier curve.

Four-hundred-nine patients were recruited. The median time between the onset of the current ED episode and the access to a specialized ED care was 2 years. Most of the participants did not directly access the specialist ED unit: primary “points of access” to care were mental health professionals and general practitioners. The involvement of different health professionals in the pathway, seeking help for general psychiatric symptoms, and lack of support from family members were associated with delayed access to ED units.

Educational programs aiming to promote early diagnosis and treatment for EDs should pay particular attention to general practitioners, in addition to mental health professionals, and family members to increase awareness of these illnesses and of their treatment initiation process.

The purpose of this study was to assess the readability of information on the Internet posted about coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) to determine how closely these materials are written to the recommended reading levels.

Using the search term “coronavirus,” information posted on the first 100 English language websites was identified. Using an online readability calculator, multiple readability tests were conducted to ensure a comprehensive representation would result.

The mean readability scores ranged between grade levels 6.2 and 17.8 (graduate school level). Four of the 5 measures (GFI, CLI, SMOG, FRE) found that readability exceeded the 10th grade reading level indicating that the text of these websites would be difficult for the average American to read. The mean reading level for nearly all noncommercial and commercial websites was at or above the 10th grade reading level.

Messages about COVID-19 must be readable at an “easy” level, and must contain clear guidelines for behavior. The degree to which individuals seek information in response to risk messages is positively related to the expectation that the information will resolve uncertainty. However, if the information is too complex to interpret and it fails to lead to disambiguation, this can contribute to feelings of panic.

Patients with severe mental illness are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease because of lifestyle, co-morbidity and medication effects.

The aim of this audit is to ascertain the regularity of blood tests (u&e's, fasting blood glucose, lipid profile)among patients on Antipsychotic medication under North Durham Psychosis team.

According to audit standards (based on NICE guidelines-Schizophrenia and Maudsley guidelines), All patients on antipsychotic medication should have Urea & Electorates, Fasting blood glucose and Fasting Lipid profile done at least once a year. All 67 patients in North Durham Psychosis Team were included. We searched for these readings between 1st September 2008 to 30th August 2009 in patient records. Of the 67 patients, notes were retrieved for 50. Of the 50, 46 were on antipsychotic medications.

Of 46 patients, 58% had urea & electorates, 58% had Fasting blood glucose and 46%had fasting lipid profile recorded.

Because of lifestyle, co-morbidity and medication effects, patients with severe mental illness are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Our audit identified a need for systemic assessment of physical health with appropriate blood investigations and follow up with appropriate management plan (lifestyle education, lipid modification therapy) which are critical to minimising risks and preventing long term adverse health consequences. This results may also reflect a lack of communication between primary care and secondary care as the physical health for these clients are primarily managed by General Practitioners. It may be that these investigations are conducted but not communicated to secondary care.

Neuroanatomical abnormalities in first-episode psychosis (FEP) tend to be subtle and widespread. The vast majority of previous studies have used small samples, and therefore may have been underpowered. In addition, most studies have examined participants at a single research site, and therefore the results may be specific to the local sample investigated. Consequently, the findings reported in the existing literature are highly heterogeneous. This study aimed to overcome these issues by testing for neuroanatomical abnormalities in individuals with FEP that are expressed consistently across several independent samples.

Structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging data were acquired from a total of 572 FEP and 502 age and gender comparable healthy controls at five sites. Voxel-based morphometry was used to investigate differences in grey matter volume (GMV) between the two groups. Statistical inferences were made at p < 0.05 after family-wise error correction for multiple comparisons.

FEP showed a widespread pattern of decreased GMV in fronto-temporal, insular and occipital regions bilaterally; these decreases were not dependent on anti-psychotic medication. The region with the most pronounced decrease – gyrus rectus – was negatively correlated with the severity of positive and negative symptoms.

This study identified a consistent pattern of fronto-temporal, insular and occipital abnormalities in five independent FEP samples; furthermore, the extent of these alterations is dependent on the severity of symptoms and duration of illness. This provides evidence for reliable neuroanatomical alternations in FEP, expressed above and beyond site-related differences in anti-psychotic medication, scanning parameters and recruitment criteria.