Objectives: Psychosis can be thought of as a threat-based experience. Compassion has been shown to be effective in reducing threat, although highly distressed individuals may struggle to be self-compassionate. This study explored the effects of compassionate interactions with staff on inpatients with psychosis.
Method: Experience Sampling Method (ESM) was used to investigate the relationships between compassion from staff and paranoia, voice hearing, distress related to psychosis experiences, affect and risk incidents in daily life. Twenty-two service users residing on inpatient mental health wards took part. Baseline measures of compassion, fears of compassion and affect were taken. Participants completed ESM assessments 10 times per day, over 6 days.
Results: Compassion from staff was associated with a small increase in voice hearing, but was not associated with paranoia, paranoia-related distress, voice-related distress, negative affect, positive affect, or risk incidents in daily life. Baseline fears of compassion moderated the relationships between compassion from staff and some of the service user outcomes. For inpatients scoring low on fears of compassion, compassionate interactions were associated with increased positive affect and lower paranoia. However, for those scoring high on fears of compassion, this relationship was reversed, and compassionate interactions were associated with higher paranoia and lower positive affect.
Conclusion: People with psychosis who have fears of compassion may benefit from receiving support to address these fears in order to experience the benefit from the compassion of staff. The results should be interpreted with caution due to the low number of observations and limited statistical power.
Objectives: We report the effect of quality of therapy delivery on outcomes in a randomized, controlled trial of behavioural activation (BA) and guided self-help (GSH) for depression in adults with intellectual disabilities.
Methods: A study specific measure of quality was used in a linear mixed effect model to determine the effects therapy and therapy quality on therapy outcome.
Results: There was a significant interaction between quality and treatment type, with lower quality therapy associated with better outcome for GSH but poorer outcome for BA, with little difference in outcomes at higher levels of therapy quality.
Conclusions: Factors suggesting high quality in individualized BA may indicate problematic engagement for GSH. More research into processes in therapy for people with intellectual disabilities is required.
Objectives: The accommodation of symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) by loved ones is highly prevalent and impactful on treatment outcomes; however, little is known about factors that influence accommodation by romantic partners of OCD sufferers. The aim of this preliminary investigation was to explore such correlates.
Methods: A community sample of 50 patients self-identifying with OCD (Mage = 29.3; SD = 9.3; 74% female) and 20 individuals self-identifying as the partner of someone with OCD (Mage = 32.1; SD = 12.4; 65% female) participated in this study via an online questionnaire.
Results: Associations were found between partner accommodation of OCD and a range of obsessions and compulsions across the patient and partner samples, as well as patient-reported symptom severity, functional impairment and negative emotion states. Neuroticism was also positively associated with partner accommodation in the patient sample but did not contribute to its prediction over and above other known correlates of family accommodation. In the partner sample, extraversion was found to be a unique negative correlate of partner accommodation.
Conclusions: These findings highlight the vital role both patient and partner factors play in the accommodation of OCD behaviours by romantic partners and the importance of involving loved ones in the treatment of individuals with OCD.
Objective: Prior research has revealed impaired inhibitory control as a pivotal factor contributing to smokers' struggle to control smoking impulses. However, few studies focus on enhancing smokers' inhibitory control. This study investigates the potential of social rewards to bolster inhibitory control among smokers and elucidates the underlying mechanisms.
Methods: In Experiment 1, a reward-based Go/Nogo paradigm assessed error rates and reaction times for 30 smokers exposed to social reward and neutral feedback in distinct contexts (smoking-related and neutral). Experiment 2 used a modified paradigm, incorporating cognitive load manipulation, to investigate error rates, reaction times, N2, and P3 ERPs among 32 smokers facing social reward and neutral feedback under different cognitive loads (high and low).
Results: Smokers exhibit lower Nogo error rates with social reward feedback; higher error rates occur with smoking cues and high cognitive load; increased N2, P3 amplitudes under social reward versus neutral feedback; low cognitive load enhances P3 amplitude under social reward.
Conclusion: Social reward improves smokers' inhibitory control, but this effect weakens with exposure to smoking cues; higher cognitive load further diminishes the enhancement of smokers' inhibitory control by social reward under smoking cues.
Objectives: To investigate: (i) whether mood states associated with bipolar disorder are associated with poorer quality of life in older adults, and (ii) what are some of the predictors of quality of life in older adults with mood states associated with bipolar disorder.
Methods: The authors completed a cross-sectional multilevel analysis of panel data from seven waves of The English Longitudinal Study of Ageing dataset. The main analysis included 567 participants who reported experiencing mood states associated with bipolar disorder. Some participants reported this in more than one wave, resulting in 835 observations of mood states associated with bipolar disorder across the seven waves. Quality of life was assessed using the Control, Autonomy, Self-realization, and Pleasure-19 (CASP-19) measure.
Results: The presence of mood states associated with bipolar disorder was significantly associated with poorer quality of life, even after controlling for multiple covariates (age, sex, social isolation, loneliness, alcohol use, education level, and economic status). Loneliness significantly predicted poorer quality of life in older adults with mood states associated with bipolar disorder. In contrast, higher educational attainment and being female predicted better quality of life in this group.
Conclusions: Older adults with mood states associated with bipolar disorder have potentially worse quality of life compared to the general population, which may be partly driven by loneliness. This has ramifications for the support offered to this population and suggests that treatments should focus on reducing loneliness to improve outcomes.
Introduction: Animal-assisted psychotherapy is an emerging field with great potential and growing popularity. However, empirical research on its effectiveness is insufficient, and consistent evidence about patients' commitment is missing. The present meta-analysis addresses this gap by systematically comparing drop-out rates in animal-assisted psychotherapy and by relating the resulting across study drop-out rate to across study drop-out rates reported in meta-analyses on conventional psychotherapy.
Method: Fifty-seven studies published until August 2022 were identified as eligible for meta-analytic comparison, that is, they conducted animal-assisted psychotherapy on at least one group of psychiatric patients and reported drop-out rates. Potential moderating influences of the type of animal and patients' disorder were considered, as well as multiple other demographic and study design variables.
Results: The across study drop-out rate in animal-assisted psychotherapy was 11.2%. This was significantly lower than the across meta-analyses drop-out rate of conventional psychotherapy (d = -.45, p = .0005). Although effects of moderator variables could not be evaluated statistically due to too small and heterogeneous data sets, descriptive results suggest influences of the type of animal and patient disorder. However, study quality ratings identified serious shortcomings regarding proper research design, most critically concerning the report of effect size measures, the use of standardized intervention plans and Open Science practices.
Conclusion: Drop-out constitutes a major problem of psychotherapeutic research and practice. By proposing that the inclusion of an animal in the psychotherapeutic setting can enhance patients' commitment and by outlining challenges and opportunity of animal-assisted psychotherapy, this meta-analysis offers a starting point for future research in this evolving field.
Objective: Young people in care (i.e., in the child welfare system) are a group who have often experienced very high rates of potentially traumatic events, including maltreatment. It is well-documented that they have high rates of trauma-related mental health difficulties, such as posttraumatic stress. To address the needs of the large number of young people who may benefit from support, scalable interventions are crucial. But also important is that they are effective and deliverable - particularly given the complexity of this group and services. We assessed a five-session group CBT-based intervention for PTSD. The primary goal was to understand core procedural and protocol uncertainties to address prior to a definitive trial.
Methods: Participants were 34 10-17 year olds in care, with moderate to severe posttraumatic stress symptoms, and their caregiver. We ran seven groups (four online), delivered in social care and NHS-based mental health teams. Data were collected via pre-, post-, 3-month follow-up questionnaires and qualitative interviews.
Results: Of the 34 participants allocated to the intervention, 27 (80%) attended at least three of the five sessions (most attended all). Caregiver attendance was lower (50%). There was generally good completion of assessment measures. Qualitatively, most participants were positive about the intervention, and many reported improvements in areas such as coping, sleep, and willingness to talk about experiences. However, there were important concerns about the lack of ongoing support, given this was a low-intensity intervention for a group who often had complex needs.
Conclusion: The intervention and research protocols were acceptable to most young people and carers. With modifications, a future definitive trial would likely be possible. However, key considerations include: how (and whether) to screen for PTSD; the trial design; and the option to embed high-intensity support (e.g., via assessing a stepped-care model).
Objectives: Rates of PTSD are up to 12 times higher in care-experienced young people (CEYP) compared to their peers. Trauma-focused CBTs (tf-CBT) are the best-evidenced treatment for youth with PTSD, yet, in practice, CEYP often struggle to access this treatment. We worked alongside services to understand barriers and facilitators of the implementation of cognitive therapy for PTSD (a type of tf-CBT) to CEYP.
Design: This was an active, open implementation trial.
Methods: We recruited 28 mental health teams across England, including general CAMHS, targeted CAMHS for CEYP and social care-based teams. From these teams, participants were 243 mental health professionals, from a wide variety of professional backgrounds. Following recruitment/intervention training, teams participated in rolling three monthly focus groups and individual interviews, to understand what helped and hindered implementation. Data were analysed using a framework analysis conducted using CFIR 2.0.
Results: Almost half of the teams were able to implement, but only approximately one quarter with CEYP, specifically. Universal barriers that were discussed by almost all teams particularly highlighted service structures and poor resourcing as major barriers to delivery to CEYP, as well as the complexities of the young person and their network. Unique factors that differentiated teams who did and did not implement included commissioning practices, the culture of the team, leadership engagement and style, and the development of supervision structures.
Conclusions: Findings offer key considerations for mental health teams, service leads, commissioners and policy-makers to enhance delivery of best-evidenced mental health treatments like CT-PTSD, for CEYP.