BJPsych Open

BackgroundPeople with severe COVID anxiety have significant fears of contagion, physiological symptoms of anxiety in response to a COVID stimuli, and employ safety behaviours which are often in excess of health guidelines and at the expense of other life priorities. The natural course of severe COVID anxiety is not known. MethodsThis prospective cohort study followed 285 people with severe COVID anxiety in United Kingdom over 18-months. Descriptive statistics and linear regression models identi...

BackgroundAnxiety and depression are common, debilitating and costly. These disorders are influenced by multiple risk factors, from genes to psychological vulnerabilities and environmental stressors but research is hampered by a lack of sufficiently large comprehensive studies. We are recruiting 40,000 individuals with lifetime depression or anxiety, with broad assessment of risks to facilitate future research. MethodsThe Genetic Links to Anxiety and Depression (GLAD) Study (www.gladstudy.org.u...

BackgroundThere is a growing global awareness of the psychological consequences of long Covid, supported by emerging empirical evidence. However, the mergence and long-term trajectories of psychological symptoms following the infection are still unclear. AimsTo examine when psychological symptoms first emerge following the infection with SARS-CoV-2, and the long-term trajectories of psychological symptoms comparing long and short Covid groups. MethodsWe analysed longitudinal data from the UCL ...

Despite ample research on the prevalence of specific psychiatric disorders during COVID-19, we know little about how the pandemic affects the general wellbeing of a wider population. The study investigates the prevalence and predictors of general psychiatric disorders measured by the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and frequency of loneliness during COVID-19 in the United Kingdom, a country heavily hit by the pandemic. We analyzed 15,530 respondents of the first large-scale, nation...

BackgroundWe investigated the extent to which positive changes in stigma outcomes reported over the course of Time to Change were sustained by 2023, two years after the programmes end in 2021. MethodsWe used regression analyses to evaluate trends in outcomes. Measures were of stigma-related knowledge (Mental Health Knowledge Schedule (MAKS)), attitudes (Community Attitudes to the Mentally Ill scale (CAMI)), and desire for social distance (Reported and Intended Behaviour Scale (RIBS)). We also e...

BackgroundImproving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services address anxiety and depression in primary care, but psychotic disorders are typically excluded. Our previous research found that 1 in 4 patients report distressing psychotic experiences (PE) alongside common mental disorders, yet little is known about their clinical presentation and their impact on recovery. MethodsWe used the Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences - Positive Scale (CAPE-P15) to determine the clinical pr...

BackgroundPeople with severe mental illnesses (SMIs) are three times more likely to smoke than the wider population, contributing to widening health inequalities. Here we report the long term [3 year] outcomes for the SCIMITAR+ trial (ISRCTN72955454), which compared usual care to a bespoke smoking cessation package. MethodsWe recruited 526 heavy smokers with bipolar illness or schizophrenia who were randomly allocated to a bespoke smoking cessation intervention (n=265) or to usual care (n=261) ...

The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to have had a particularly high impact on the health and wellbeing of people with pre-existing mental disorders. This may include higher than expected mortality rates due to severe infections themselves, due to other comorbidities, or through increased suicide rates during lockdown. However, there has been very little published information to date on causes of death in mental health service users. Taking advantage of a large mental healthcare database linked to de...

The lockdown policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK has a potentially important impact on provision of mental healthcare with uncertain consequences over the 12 months ahead. Past activity may provide a means to predict future demand. Taking advantage of the Clinical Record Interactive Search (CRIS) data resource at the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust (SLaM; a large mental health service provider for 1.2m residents in south London), we carried out a range of descriptive analyses ...

BackgroundCOVID-19 is likely to exacerbate the symptoms of poor mental health family caregivers. To investigate whether rates of depression increased in caregivers during COVID-19 and whether the unintended consequences of health protective measures, i.e., social isolation, exacerbated this risk. Another aim was to see if caregivers accessed any online/phone psychological support during COVID. MethodData (1349 caregivers; 7527 non-caregivers) was extracted from Understanding Society, UK populat...

Mental health and wellbeing impacts of COVID19 were assessed in a convenience sample of 600 UK adults using a cross-sectional design. Recruited over a two-week period during the initial phase of the government lockdown, participants completed an online survey that included COVID19-related questions, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, the WHO-5 and the OXCAP-MH. Self-isolating prior to lockdown, increased feelings of isolation since the lockdown, and having COVID19-related livelihood conc...

BackgroundThe impact of COVID-19 on mental health is unclear. Evidence from longitudinal studies with pre pandemic data are needed to address (1) how mental health has changed from pre-pandemic levels to during the COVID-19 pandemic and (2), whether there are groups at greater risk of poorer mental health during the pandemic? MethodsWe used data from COVID-19 surveys (completed through April/May 2020), nested within two large longitudinal population cohorts with harmonised measures of mental he...

AimsInpatient life in UK mental health hospitals was profoundly altered during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. We analysed whether these changes impacted the rate of violent and aggressive incidents across acute adult wards and psychiatric intensive care units in a South London NHS Mental Health Trust during the first UK lockdown. MethodsWe used an interrupted time series analysis to assess whether the rate of violent and aggressive incidents changed during the lockdown period from 23r...

BackgroundCognitive function is a significant predictor of health and mortality in the population. Common mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety, are associated with both cognitive impairments and increased functional impairment. This study aimed to examine the relationship between cognition, mental health and functioning across two cohorts. MethodsParticipants were recruited from an online population cohort, HealthWise Wales (N=3,679), and a psychiatric cohort, the National Cen...

BackgroundMany people with depression do not respond well to the first antidepressant prescribed. Treatment Resistant Depression (TRD) refers to depression which does not respond to multiple subsequent antidepressant treatments. Identifying TRD in routinely-collected health records is challenging due to limited response-related data. Previous studies have used definitions based on the number of antidepressant switches observed. However, these do not account for other features clinically indicati...

BACKGROUNDDepression is a disabling disorder with variable outcomes. In severe cases treatment is provided by specialist mental health care services, yet there is a lack of real-world evidence demonstrating how depression is managed within these settings, and consequently, a limited understanding of how to improve care for this population. AIMSWe examine the characteristics of patients receiving secondary mental healthcare for depressive disorders within a UK National Health Service (NHS) provi...

The existing gold standard assessments of depression suffer various issues, which include the evaluation of constructs extraneous to the core symptoms of the illness, and low sensitivity to change over time. Members of our team developed a new, simple visual analogue scale that aims to address these issues (M3VAS). Initial validation of the scale demonstrated good internal consistency and convergent validity. Still, we have not yet investigated how well it assesses changes in the severity of de...

ImportanceMultiple data sources suggest that COVID-19 is having adverse effects on mental health. But it is vital to understand what is causing this: worries over potential adversities due to the pandemic, or the toll of experiencing adverse events. ObjectiveTo explore the time-varying longitudinal relationship between (i) worries about adversity, and (ii) experience of adversity, and both anxiety and depression and test the moderating role of socio-economic position. DesignLongitudinal cohort...

BackgroundAnxiety and somatic symptoms were common during the coronavirus pandemic. People who were highly anxious about COVID-19 may have been at a higher risk of developing new somatic symptoms which persisted after the pandemic. Here we examine changes in somatic symptoms before and after the pandemic among people who had severe COVID anxiety, and identify factors associated with these changes. DesignUK adults who met the threshold for severe COVID anxiety were recruited online during the co...

ObjectiveThe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has affected many aspects of the human condition, including mental health and psychological wellbeing. This study examined trajectories of depressive symptoms (DST) over time among vulnerable individuals in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic. MethodsThe sample consisted of 51,417 adults recruited from the COVID-19 Social Study. Depressive symptoms were measured on seven occasions (21st March - 2nd April), using the Patient Health Questi...