Cognitive stimulation therapy (CST) is a psychosocial treatment for people with dementia. It is an evidence-based treatment which shows improvement in cognition, well-being and quality of life of people living with dementia. CST is recognised as one of the interventions which is cost-effective.

The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guideline recommends that people with mild to moderate dementia should be given opportunities to take part in CST. The CST sessions done in North Norfolk are weekly sessions which span 90 minutes. A group of between 8–10 people attend a 14-week CST treatment course.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the CST on cognition and social independence of patients with dementia in North Norfolk.

Patients diagnosed with mild to moderate dementia at the memory service were referred for CST sessions. A trained professional assessed the patients to determine their eligibility for CST. The assessment included: assessing motivation to join a group therapy, administration of the short-version of the Addenbrooke Cognitive Examination questionnaire (MINI-ACE) to assess cognitive functions and the administration of Engagement and Independence in Dementia Questionnaire (EIDQ) which measures the social independence of the patients. A higher score on both questionnaires indicates better cognitive function and social independence, respectively.

The CST sessions spanned from February 2023 to May 2023. The patients were re-assessed after the 14-week sessions of CST for their MINI-ACE and EIDQ scores. A qualitative questionnaire was administered for feedback about the sessions.

Data were obtained from patients' clinical record following approval from the research and service evaluation team of the Trust.

Nine patients completed the 14-week CST sessions. The mean age of the patients was 82.9 ± 4.8. 66.7% were male and 33.3% were female. 77.8% were on memory medication and 22.2% were not on memory medication. 44.4%, 33.3%, 11.1% and 11.1% were diagnosed with dementia in Alzheimer's Disease; Mixed Alzheimer's-Vascular Dementia, Lewy Body Dementia and Frontotemporal Dementia, respectively.

The same proportion of patients (44.5%) had both increased and decreased MINI-ACE score after CST while 11% had no changes in MINI-ACE score. Majority (66.7%) had increased EIDQ score after CST, 22.2% had decreased EIDQ score and 11.1% had no changes.

The CST sessions done in North Norfolk showed more positive effect on social independence than cognition in people with dementia.

Psychotic experiences are reported by 5–10% of young people, although only a minority persist and develop into psychotic disorders. It is unclear what characteristics differentiate those with transient psychotic experiences from those with persistent psychotic experiences that are more likely to be of clinical relevance.

To investigate how longitudinal profiles of psychotic experiences, created from assessments at three different time points, are influenced by early life and co-occurring factors.

Using data from 8045 individuals from a birth cohort study, longitudinal profiles of psychotic experiences based on semi-structured interviews conducted at 12, 18 and 24 years were defined. Environmental, cognitive, psychopathological and genetic determinants of these profiles were investigated, along with concurrent changes in psychopathology and cognition.

Following multiple imputations, the distribution of longitudinal profiles of psychotic experiences was none (65.7%), transient (24.1%), low-frequency persistent (8.4%) and high-frequency persistent (1.7%). Individuals with high-frequency persistent psychotic experiences were more likely to report traumatic experiences, other psychopathology, a more externalised locus of control, reduced emotional stability and conscientious personality traits in childhood, compared with those with transient psychotic experiences. These characteristics also differed between those who had any psychotic experiences and those who did not.

These findings indicate that the same risk factors are associated with incidence as with persistence of psychotic experiences. Thus, it might be that the severity of exposure, rather than the presence of specific disease-modifying factors, is most likely to determine whether psychotic experiences are transient or persist, and potentially develop into a clinical disorder over time.

It is not clear to what extent associations between schizophrenia, cannabis use and cigarette use are due to a shared genetic etiology. We, therefore, examined whether schizophrenia genetic risk associates with longitudinal patterns of cigarette and cannabis use in adolescence and mediating pathways for any association to inform potential reduction strategies.

Associations between schizophrenia polygenic scores and longitudinal latent classes of cigarette and cannabis use from ages 14 to 19 years were investigated in up to 3925 individuals in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Mediation models were estimated to assess the potential mediating effects of a range of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral phenotypes.

The schizophrenia polygenic score, based on single nucleotide polymorphisms meeting a training-set p threshold of 0.05, was associated with late-onset cannabis use (OR = 1.23; 95% CI = 1.08,1.41), but not with cigarette or early-onset cannabis use classes. This association was not mediated through lower IQ, victimization, emotional difficulties, antisocial behavior, impulsivity, or poorer social relationships during childhood. Sensitivity analyses adjusting for genetic liability to cannabis or cigarette use, using polygenic scores excluding the CHRNA5-A3-B4 gene cluster, or basing scores on a 0.5 training-set p threshold, provided results consistent with our main analyses.

Our study provides evidence that genetic risk for schizophrenia is associated with patterns of cannabis use during adolescence. Investigation of pathways other than the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral phenotypes examined here is required to identify modifiable targets to reduce the public health burden of cannabis use in the population.

Smoking prevalence is higher amongst individuals with schizophrenia and depression compared with the general population. Mendelian randomisation (MR) can examine whether this association is causal using genetic variants identified in genome-wide association studies (GWAS).

We conducted two-sample MR to explore the bi-directional effects of smoking on schizophrenia and depression. For smoking behaviour, we used (1) smoking initiation GWAS from the GSCAN consortium and (2) we conducted our own GWAS of lifetime smoking behaviour (which captures smoking duration, heaviness and cessation) in a sample of 462690 individuals from the UK Biobank. We validated this instrument using positive control outcomes (e.g. lung cancer). For schizophrenia and depression we used GWAS from the PGC consortium.

There was strong evidence to suggest smoking is a risk factor for both schizophrenia (odds ratio (OR) 2.27, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.67–3.08, p < 0.001) and depression (OR 1.99, 95% CI 1.71–2.32, p < 0.001). Results were consistent across both lifetime smoking and smoking initiation. We found some evidence that genetic liability to depression increases smoking (β = 0.091, 95% CI 0.027–0.155, p = 0.005) but evidence was mixed for schizophrenia (β = 0.022, 95% CI 0.005–0.038, p = 0.009) with very weak evidence for an effect on smoking initiation.

These findings suggest that the association between smoking, schizophrenia and depression is due, at least in part, to a causal effect of smoking, providing further evidence for the detrimental consequences of smoking on mental health.

This study compared the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Programme portfolio of research with the united Kingdom (UK) burden of disease, as measured by Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs).

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Setting: The HTA Programme cohort included all funded applications (n = 363) received by the HTA Programme during the period 1 April 2011 to 31 March 2016. The sample contained primary research and evidence syntheses, all purely methodological studies were excluded since these are not comparable to the other study types.

Main Outcome Measure: Proportion of spend for each of the twenty-one Health Research Classification System (HRCS) health categories were compared with burden of disease in the UK calculated using 2015 DALY data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) Global Health Data Exchange (GHDx).

The funded HTA Programme projects totalled about GBP397million research spend, which broadly reflected the UK DALY burden. Overall, there was less than 5 percent difference between the actual and predicted programme spend based on the burden of disease in the UK in most instances (seventeen out of the twenty-one HRCS Health Categories).

The largest categories of apportioned spend were Cancer (accounting for 12.1 percent of portfolio), and Mental Health (11.8 percent of portfolio) which particularly reflected the 9.8 percent burden of disease to the UK. Most notable deviations from DALY, where spend was lower than disease burden, were in the Cancer, Cardiovascular and Musculoskeletal categories; which may reflect the importance of other, notably charity, funding.

The HTA Programme spend broadly aligns with burden of disease as measured using DALYs. Discrepancies were expected owing to the programme remit and its approach to commissioning research to address market failure particularly in areas that are not already well supported by research charities or industry. Regular review of DALY data during research prioritisation and commissioning allows the HTA Programme to identify and address shortfalls in disease areas and to balance its portfolio.

To determine rates of parent-reported child awareness of parental depression, examine characteristics of parents, children and families according to child awareness, and explore whether child awareness is associated with child psychopathology. Data were available from 271 families participating in the Early Prediction of Adolescent Depression (EPAD) study, a longitudinal study of offspring of parents with recurrent depression.

Seventy-three per cent of participating children were perceived as being aware of their parent's depression. Older children, and children of parents who experienced more severe depression, were more likely to be aware. Awareness was not associated with child psychopathology.

Considering children in the context of parental depression is important. Child awareness may influence their access to early intervention and prevention programmes. Further research is needed to understand the impact of awareness on the child.

Data on effectiveness of acute day hospital treatment for psychiatric illness are inconsistent.

To establish the effectiveness and costs of care in a day hospital providing acute treatment exclusively.

In a randomised controlled trial, 206 voluntarily admitted patients were allocated to either day hospital treatment or conventional wards. Psychopathology, treatment satisfaction and subjective quality of life at discharge, 3 months and 12 months after discharge, readmissions to acute psychiatric treatment within 3 and 12 months, and costs in the index treatment period were taken as outcome criteria.

Day hospital patients showed significantly more favourable changes in psychopathology at discharge but not at follow-up. They also reported higher treatment satisfaction at discharge and after 3 months, but not after 12 months. There were no significant differences in subjective quality of life or in readmissions during follow-up. Mean total support costs were higher for the day hospital group.

Day hospital treatment for voluntary psychiatric patients in an inner-city area appears more effective in terms of reducing psychopathology in the short term and generates greater patient satisfaction than conventional in-patient care, but may be more costly.