59 research outputs found

    Commentary: Can a modernised psychiatric unit space reduce the use of coercive measures in child and adolescent psychiatry? A commentary on Czernine et al. (2024)

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    The environment influences the way we act, react and adapt to our surroundings whether it is consciously or unconsciously. Though it is widely accepted that multiple interacting systems influence human behaviour and development across the life span, the reality of teasing these factors apart is difficult and challenging. In this brief commentary on Czernine and colleagues' important and timely paper, ā€˜Can a modernised psychiatric unit space reduce the use of coercive measures in child and adolescent psychiatry?ā€™, I evaluate and build on the evidence presented by making constructive suggestions on ways of improving the status quo healthcare and treatment conditions for children and adolescents today. The underlying assumption is that by furthering this complex yet important area of research in the field of psychiatry and adjacent disciplines, we can improve existing healthcare systems and processes that are aligned with meeting child and adolescent needs

    Co-creating psychological wellbeing and life-skill workshops with BAME youths in West London (Cope-Well) Study Report (Wong, 2021)

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    The CopeWell Study is a collaboration between University College London (UCL) and London-based Jamal Edwards Delve (JEDelve) charity. Funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Research England, this collaborative research explores the disparities in health ā€“ both mentally and physically ā€“ between black, asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) communities and non-BAME groups during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through focus groups, 1-on-1 interviews, and co-created life-skill workshops, we highlight the good and lessons learned through young people's lived experiences. This knowledge exchange partnership enables charities, academics, and young people to come together and to support each other during these challenging times and beyond. Importantly, we also explore possible avenues of improving the prospects and wellbeing of young people from BAME groups during the pandemic and beyond. This report documents what the CopeWell Study Team have learnt and the topics covered in our co-created workshops with young people in supporting their mental health, career aspirations, social representation, and expressive and creative outlets. We hope this knowledge shared with members of the public and the academic community will be informative for policies in education and public health

    Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on young people from black and mixed ethnic groupsā€™ mental health in West London: a qualitative study

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    OBJECTIVE: The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted vulnerable groupsā€™ physical and mental health, especially young people and minority ethnic groups, yet little is known about the crux of their experiences and what support they would like. To address this gap, this qualitative study aims to uncover the effect of the COVID-19 outbreak on young people with ethnic minority backgroundsā€™ mental health, how this changed since the end of lockdown and what support they need to cope with these issues. DESIGN: The study utilised semi-structured interviews to conduct a phenomenological analysis. SETTING: Community centre in West London, England. PARTICIPANTS: Ten 15ā€‰min in-person semistructured interviews were conducted with young people aged 12ā€“17 years old from black and mixed ethnic groups who regularly attend the community centre. RESULTS: Through Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, results indicated that the participantsā€™ mental health was negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with feelings of loneliness being the most common experience. However, positive effects were concurrently observed including improved well-being and better coping strategies post lockdown, which is a testament to the young peopleā€™s resilience. That said, it is clear that young people from minority ethnic backgrounds lacked support during the COVID-19 pandemic and would now need psychological, practical and relational assistance to cope with these challenges. CONCLUSIONS: While future studies would benefit from a larger ethnically diverse sample, this is a start. Study findings have the potential to inform future government policies around mental health support and access for young people from ethnic minority groups, notably prioritising support for grassroots initiatives during times of crisis

    Co-creating Employment, Education, and Psychological Wellbeing Workshops with Youths of Islington (EMPOWER-Islington)

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    The Empower Islington Study is a collaboration between University College London (UCL) and the Youth Employment team of Islington Council London from October 2022 to October 2023. Funded by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Research England, this collaborative research explores the impact of Covid-19 on 14-to-25-year-oldsā€™ social lives and health outcomes and aims to co-create mental health and lifeskill support with young people for young people. Participants currently residing in Islington were invited to take part, most of whom are already in contact with social workers and support team from the council. The Empower-Islington project aims to: ā€¢ Aim 1: Understand the barriers to mental health, employment, and education access that are worsening youth outcomes during the pandemic ā€“ as assessed by 1-on-1 interviews and consultative focus groups (What support do young people want and how can we empower them now?) ā€¢ Aim 2: Co-develop five bespoke expert-led workshops and experiential activities based on young peopleā€™s voices in Aim 1. ā€¢ Aim 3: Assess activities in Aim 2 for short-/longer-term impact on young people (e.g., wellbeing/ ideas/behaviours change scores, skills/insights gained) and how project outcomes can have a sustained impact in Islingtonā€™s policy, practice, and research

    Is it good to be bad? An evolutionary analysis of the adaptive potential of psychopathic traits

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    Although psychopathy is widely conceptualised as a mental disorder, some researchers question the maladaptive nature of psychopathy, and argue that it might be advantageous from an evolutionary point of view. According to this view psychopathy can be seen as an evolutionary adaptative strategy that relies on deception and manipulation to gain short-term reproductive benefits. Psychopathy is also identified as a fast life strategy in response to early life stress and an adaptation to harsh environments. This paper investigates the evidence that psychopathic traits are adaptive, while also addressing the limitations of current evolutionary models of psychopathy based on frequency-dependent selection and life-history theory. We review recent studies on the fitness correlates of psychopathy and find that psychopathic traits present potential adaptive trade-offs between fertility and mortality, and offspring quantity and quality. On a proximate level, individual differences in stress reactivity and environmental risk factors in early development predispose to psychopathy through gene-environment interactions. We propose that environmental, developmental, social and cultural factors can mediate the relationship between psychopathic traits and fitness and therefore should be considered to make accurate predictions on the adaptive potential of psychopathy. We end by outlining gaps in the literature and making recommendations for future evolutionary research on psychopathy

    A three-timepoint network analysis of Covid-19's impact on schizotypal traits, paranoia and mental health through loneliness

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    The 2019 coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic has impacted people's mental wellbeing. Studies to date have examined the prevalence of mental health symptoms (anxiety and depression), yet fewer longitudinal studies have compared across background factors and other psychological variables to identify vulnerable subgroups in the general population. This study tests to what extent higher levels of schizotypal traits and paranoia are associated with mental health variables 6- and 12-months since April 2020. Over 2300 adult volunteers (18-89 years, female = 74.9%) with access to the study link online were recruited from the UK, the USA, Greece and Italy. Self-reported levels of schizotypy, paranoia, anxiety, depression, aggression, loneliness and stress from three timepoints (17 April to 13 July 2020, N1 = 1599; 17 October to 31 January 2021, N2 = 774; and 17 April to 31 July 2021, N3 = 586) were mapped using network analysis and compared across time and background variables (sex, age, income, country). Schizotypal traits and paranoia were positively associated with poorer mental health through loneliness, with no effect of age, sex, income levels, countries and timepoints. Loneliness was the most influential variable across all networks, despite overall reductions in levels of loneliness, schizotypy, paranoia and aggression during the easing of lockdown (time 3). Individuals with higher levels of schizotypal traits/paranoia reported poorer mental health outcomes than individuals in the low-trait groups. Schizotypal traits and paranoia are associated with poor mental health outcomes through self-perceived feelings of loneliness, suggesting that increasing social/community cohesion may improve individuals' mental wellbeing in the long run

    COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance among Parents (UCL-Osaka Vax-PaC Study) End-of-Project Report

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    I'm alone but not lonely. U-shaped pattern of self-perceived loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK and Greece.

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    OBJECTIVES: In the past months, many countries have adopted varying degrees of lockdown restrictions to control the spread of the COVID-19 virus. According to the existing literature, some consequences of lockdown restrictions on people's lives are beginning to emerge yet the evolution of such consequences in relation to the time spent in lockdown is understudied. To inform policies involving lockdown restrictions, this study adopted a data-driven Machine Learning approach to uncover the short-term time-related effects of lockdown on people's physical and mental health. STUDY DESIGN: An online questionnaire was launched on 17 April 2020, distributed through convenience sampling and was self-completed by 2,276 people from 66 different countries. METHODS: Focusing on the UK sample (NĀ =Ā 325), 12 aggregated variables representing the participant's living environment, physical and mental health were used to train a RandomForest model to estimate the week of survey completion. RESULTS: Using an index of importance, Self-Perceived Loneliness was identified as the most influential variable for estimating the time spent in lockdown. A significant U-shaped curve emerged for loneliness levels, with lower scores reported by participants who took part in the study during the 6th lockdown week (pĀ =Ā 0.009). The same pattern was replicated in the Greek sample (NĀ =Ā 137) for week 4 (pĀ =Ā 0.012) and 6 (pĀ =Ā 0.009) of lockdown. CONCLUSIONS: From the trained Machine Learning model and the subsequent statistical analysis, Self-Perceived Loneliness varied across time in lockdown in the UK and Greek populations, with lower symptoms reported during the 4th and 6th lockdown weeks. This supports the dissociation between social support and loneliness, and suggests that social support strategies could be effective even in times of social isolation

    Self-perceived loneliness and depression during the Covid-19 pandemic: a two-wave replication study

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    The global Covid-19 pandemic has forced countries to impose strict lockdown restrictions and mandatory stay-at-home orders with varying impacts on individual's health. Combining a data-driven machine learning paradigm and a statistical approach, our previous paper documented a U-shaped pattern in levels of self-perceived loneliness in both the UK and Greek populations during the first lockdown (17 April to 17 July 2020). The current paper aimed to test the robustness of these results by focusing on data from the first and second lockdown waves in the UK. We tested a) the impact of the chosen model on the identification of the most time-sensitive variable in the period spent in lockdown. Two new machine learning models - namely, support vector regressor (SVR) and multiple linear regressor (MLR) were adopted to identify the most time-sensitive variable in the UK dataset from Wave 1 (n = 435). In the second part of the study, we tested b) whether the pattern of self-perceived loneliness found in the first UK national lockdown was generalisable to the second wave of the UK lockdown (17 October 2020 to 31 January 2021). To do so, data from Wave 2 of the UK lockdown (n = 263) was used to conduct a graphical inspection of the week-by-week distribution of self-perceived loneliness scores. In both SVR and MLR models, depressive symptoms resulted to be the most time-sensitive variable during the lockdown period. Statistical analysis of depressive symptoms by week of lockdown resulted in a U-shaped pattern between weeks 3 and 7 of Wave 1 of the UK national lockdown. Furthermore, although the sample size by week in Wave 2 was too small to have a meaningful statistical insight, a graphical U-shaped distribution between weeks 3 and 9 of lockdown was observed. Consistent with past studies, these preliminary results suggest that self-perceived loneliness and depressive symptoms may be two of the most relevant symptoms to address when imposing lockdown restrictions
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