Antidepressant drugs are widely used in the treatment of depression in people with chronic physical health problems.

To examine evidence related to efficacy, tolerability and safety of antidepressants for people with depression and with chronic physical health problems.

Meta-analyses of randomised controlled efficacy trials of antidepressants in depression in chronic physical health conditions. Systematic review of safety studies.

Sixty-three studies met inclusion criteria (5794 participants). In placebo-controlled studies, antidepressants showed a significant advantage in respect to remission and/or response: selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) risk ratio (RR) = 0.81 (95% CI 0.73–0.91) for remission, RR = 0.83 (95% CI 0.71–0.97) for response; tricyclics RR = 0.70 (95% CI 0.40–1.25 (not significant)) for remission, RR = 0.55 (95% 0.43–0.70) for response. Both groups of drugs were less well tolerated than placebo (leaving study early due to adverse effects) for SSRIs RR = 1.80 (95% CI 1.16–2.78), for tricyclics RR = 2.00 (95% CI 0.99–3.57). Only SSRIs were shown to improve quality of life. Direct comparisons of SSRIs and tricyclics revealed no advantage for either group for remission, response, effect size or tolerability. Effectiveness studies suggest a neutral or beneficial effect on mortality for antidepressants in participants with recent myocardial infarction.

Antidepressants are efficacious and safe in the treatment of depression occurring in the context of chronic physical health problems. The SSRIs are probably the antidepressants of first choice given their demonstrable effect on quality of life and their apparent safety in cardiovascular disease.

Mental health service users are at high risk of domestic violence but this is often not detected by mental health services.

To explore the facilitators and barriers to disclosure of domestic violence from a service user and professional perspective.

A qualitative study in a socioeconomically deprived south London borough, UK, with 18 mental health service users and 20 mental health professionals. Purposive sampling of community mental health service users and mental healthcare professionals was used to recruit participants for individual interviews. Thematic analysis was used to determine dominant and subthemes. These were transformed into conceptual maps with accompanying illustrative quotations.

Service users described barriers to disclosure of domestic violence to professionals including: fear of the consequences, including fear of Social Services involvement and consequent child protection proceedings, fear that disclosure would not be believed, and fear that disclosure would lead to further violence; the hidden nature of the violence; actions of the perpetrator; and feelings of shame. The main themes for professionals concerned role boundaries, competency and confidence. Service users and professionals reported that the medical diagnostic and treatment model with its emphasis on symptoms could act as a barrier to enquiry and disclosure. Both groups reported that enquiry and disclosure were facilitated by a supportive and trusting relationship between the individual and professional.

Mental health services are not currently conducive to the disclosure of domestic violence. Training of professionals in how to address domestic violence to increase their confidence and expertise is recommended.

Some research suggests that children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have a higher than expected risk of bipolar affective disorder. No study has examined the prevalence of bipolar disorder in a UK sample of children with ADHD.

To examine the prevalence of bipolar disorder in children diagnosed with ADHD or hyperkinetic disorder.

Psychopathology symptoms and diagnoses of bipolar disorder were assessed in 200 young people with ADHD (170 male, 30 female; age 6–18 years, mean 11.15, s.d. = 2.95). Rates of current bipolar disorder symptoms and diagnoses are reported. A family history of bipolar disorder in parents and siblings was also recorded.

Only one child, a 9-year-old boy, met diagnostic criteria for both ICD–10 hypomania and DSM–IV bipolar disorder not otherwise specified.

In a UK sample of children with ADHD a current diagnosis of bipolar disorder was uncommon.

Complaints about memory are common in older people but their relationship with underlying brain changes is controversial.

To investigate the relationship between subjective memory impairment and previous or subsequent changes in white matter lesions and brain volumes.

In a community cohort study of 1336 people without dementia, 4-year changes in brain magnetic resonance imaging measures were investigated as correlates of subjective memory impairment at baseline and follow-up.

Subjective memory impairment at baseline was associated with subsequent change in hippocampal volume and at follow-up impairment was associated with previous change in hippocampal, cerebrospinal fluid and grey matter volume and with subcortical white matter lesion increases. All associations with volume changes were U-shaped with significant quadratic terms – associations between least decline and subjective memory impairment were potentially explained by lower baseline hippocampal volumes in the groups with least volume change. Associations between hippocampal volume change and subjective memory impairment at follow-up were independent of cognitive decline and depressive symptoms, they were stronger in participants with the apolipoprotein E (APOE) ∊4 allele and in those without baseline subjective memory impairment.

Complaints of poor memory by older people, particularly when new, may be a realistic subjective appraisal of recent brain changes independent of observed cognitive decline.

Past episodes of depressive or anxiety disorders and subthreshold symptoms have both been reported to predict the occurrence of depressive or anxiety disorders. It is unclear to what extent the two factors interact or predict these disorders independently.

To examine the extent to which history, subthreshold symptoms and their combination predict the occurrence of depressive (major depressive disorder, dysthymia) or anxiety disorders (social phobia, panic disorder, agoraphobia, generalised anxiety disorder) over a 2-year period.

This was a prospective cohort study with 1167 participants: the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety. Anxiety and depressive disorders were determined with the Composite International Diagnostic Interview, subthreshold symptoms were determined with the Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology–Self Report and the Beck Anxiety Inventory.

Occurrence of depressive disorder was best predicted by a combination of a history of depression and subthreshold symptoms, followed by either one alone. Occurrence of anxiety disorder was best predicted by both a combination of a history of anxiety disorder and subthreshold symptoms and a combination of a history of depression and subthreshold symptoms, followed by any subthreshold symptoms or a history of any disorder alone.

A history and subthreshold symptoms independently predicted the subsequent occurrence of depressive or anxiety disorder. Together these two characteristics provide reasonable discriminative value. Whereas anxiety predicted the occurrence of an anxiety disorder only, depression predicted the occurrence of both depressive and anxiety disorders.

Examination of the brain regions that show aberrant activations and/or deactivations during semantic word generation could pave the way for a better understanding of the neurobiology of cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia.

To examine the pattern of functional magnetic resonance imaging blood oxygen level dependent activations and deactivations during semantic word generation in schizophrenia.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed on 24 participants with schizophrenia and 24 matched healthy controls during an overt, paced, ‘semantic category word generation’ condition and a baseline ‘word repetition’ condition that modelled all the lead-in/associated processes involved in the performance of the generation task.

The brain regions activated during word generation in healthy individuals were replicated with minimal redundancies in participants with schizophrenia. The individuals with schizophrenia showed additional activations of temporo-parieto-occipital cortical regions as well as subcortical regions, despite significantly poorer behavioural performance than the healthy participants. Importantly, the extensive deactivations in other brain regions during word generation in healthy individuals could not be replicated in those with schizophrenia.

More widespread activations and deficient deactivations in the poorly performing participants with schizophrenia may reflect an inability to inhibit competing cognitive processes, which in turn could constitute the core information-processing deficit underlying impaired word generation in schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is associated with often widespread changes in white matter structure. Most studies have investigated changes in fractional anisotropy, whereas alterations in radial or axial diffusivity have barely been investigated until now.

To investigate radial diffusivity as a potential marker of dysmyelination in direct relation to abnormalities in neural activation.

Neural activation in association with decision-making under uncertainty was investigated in 19 people with schizophrenia and 20 healthy controls and linked to radial diffusivity as measured by diffusion tensor imaging.

Decision-making under uncertainty was associated with a significantly decreased activation in a frontostriatocingulate network in the schizophrenia group. Structurally, they exhibited increased radial diffusivity in temporal white matter that was negatively correlated with activation in parts of the frontostriatocingulate network.

Present data indicate that altered diffusivity within relevant white matter networks may be closely linked to abnormal neural activation in schizophrenia.

Hypochondriasis, characterised by severe health anxiety, is a common condition associated with functional disability. Cognitive–behavioural therapy (CBT) is an effective but not widely disseminated treatment for hypochondriasis. Internet-based CBT, including guidance in the form of minimal therapist contact via email, could be a more accessible treatment, but no study has investigated internet-based CBT for hypochondriasis.

To investigate the efficacy of internet-based CBT for hypochondriasis.

A randomised controlled superiority trial with masked assessment comparing internet-based CBT (n = 40) over 12 weeks with an attention control condition (n = 41) for people with hypochondriasis. The primary outcome measure was the Health Anxiety Inventory. This trial is registrated with ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT00828152).

Participants receiving internet-based CBT made large and superior improvements compared with the control group on measures of health anxiety (between-group Cohen's d range 1.52–1.62).

Internet-based CBT is an efficacious treatment for hypochondriasis that has the potential to increase accessibility and availability of CBT for hypochodriasis.