Environmental influences
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Which young people are at greatest risk of repeat admission to psychiatric care?
Researchers in Canada have published their latest data on the demographic, socioeconomic and clinical predictors of youth re-admission to inpatient psychiatric services
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Can boosting physical activity improve ADHD symptoms in preschoolers?
“Our study findings highlight the possibility that MVPA might be a tool that can be used to reduce preschoolers’ ADHD behaviours and associated impairments, especially for young children at risk for ADHD” Betsy Hoza.
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A Cross-cultural Examination of Attachment Relationships and Mental Health in Adolescents
Research into the protective factors for adolescent mental health such as attachment will help us understand the challenges adolescents face.
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December 2019 issue – The Bridge
Summaries include; if parental consanguinity predicts the severity of Autistic symptoms; study the transmission of intergenerational anxiety in families; systematic review into the effectiveness of available interventions to treat PTSD; the efficacy of teacher assessments vs exams to assess performance in UK schools; relationship between intolerance of uncertainty and extreme demand avoidance in young people with Autism; and how fluctuations in external environmental noise affect the developing Autonomic Nervous System in babies.
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Noisy home environments affect autonomic reactions in infants
Previous research has suggested that children who are exposed to a stressful environment early in life are at a higher risk of adverse long-term outcomes, including mental disorders and cognitive impairment. Now, a team of researchers in the UK have monitored autonomic reactions.
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Individual changes in stress-level predict non-suicidal self-injury
In their latest study, Adam Miller and colleagues propose that these inconsistencies might be due to a reliance on “between-person” models that compare individuals with high stress levels to those with low stress levels.
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A mother’s touch: a key player in fine tuning the function of our genome
There is debate as to the importance of genetics in determining our behaviour. This debate has become enshrined perhaps due to the early focus of genetics on searching for DNA variation in our genome (termed a polymorphism) that affected protein structure, the hypothesis being that such a protein variant would not be working optimally in our body throughout our life.
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Children’s Understanding of Depression
Depression is a mental illness that affects children and especially adolescents, however little is known about how children and adolescents understand depression. Gaining an understanding of how children perceive illness can facilitate effective communication with health professionals and children’s active involvement in decision-making about their health.
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What is the effect of post-institutionalisation? A research digest
Research digest on DePasquale, Donzella and Gunnar’s (2018) study, which was published JCPP ‘Pubertal recalibration of cortisol reactivity following early life stress: a cross‐sectional analysis’.
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Back to school
“The government has recognised the need for greater focus on child and adolescent mental health and wellbeing, although is yet to provide adequate funding to match its rhetoric or a clear strategy for what in-school intervention would look like. Whilst early preventative programmes can be really useful for young people, I can’t help but think that the newly proposed in-school mental health initiatives might to some extent be treating problems created by the education culture that has been set up.”
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