Evaluating Model Fit

The Canadian Network for Mood and Anxiety Treatments published guidelines for the management of bipolar disorder in 2005, with updates in 2007 and 2009. This third update, in conjunction with the International Society for Bipolar Disorders, reviews new evidence and is designed to be used in conjunction with the previous publications.The recommendations for the management of acute mania remain largely unchanged. Lithium, valproate, and several atypical antipsychotic agents continue to be first-line treatments for acute mania. Monotherapy with asenapine, paliperidone extended release (ER), and divalproex ER, as well as adjunctive asenapine, have been added as first-line options.For the management of bipolar depression, lithium, lamotrigine, and quetiapine monotherapy, as well as olanzapine plus selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), and lithium or divalproex plus SSRI/bupropion remain first-line options. Lurasidone monotherapy and the combination of lurasidone or lamotrigine plus lithium or divalproex have been added as a second-line options. Ziprasidone alone or as adjunctive therapy, and adjunctive levetiracetam have been added as not-recommended options for the treatment of bipolar depression. Lithium, lamotrigine, valproate, olanzapine, quetiapine, aripiprazole, risperidone long-acting injection, and adjunctive ziprasidone continue to be first-line options for maintenance treatment of bipolar disorder. Asenapine alone or as adjunctive therapy have been added as third-line options.

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Canadian Network for Mood and Anxiety Treatments (CANMAT) and International Society for Bipolar Disorders (ISBD) collaborative update of CANMAT guidelines for the management of patients with bipolar disorder: update 2013.

The British Association for Psychopharmacology guidelines specify the scope and targets of treatment for bipolar disorder. The third version is based explicitly on the available evidence and presented, like previous Clinical Practice Guidelines, as recommendations to aid clinical decision making for practitioners: it may also serve as a source of information for patients and carers, and assist audit. The recommendations are presented together with a more detailed review of the corresponding evidence. A consensus meeting, involving experts in bipolar disorder and its treatment, reviewed key areas and considered the strength of evidence and clinical implications. The guidelines were drawn up after extensive feedback from these participants. The best evidence from randomized controlled trials and, where available, observational studies employing quasi-experimental designs was used to evaluate treatment options. The strength of recommendations has been described using the GRADE approach. The guidelines cover the diagnosis of bipolar disorder, clinical management, and strategies for the use of medicines in short-term treatment of episodes, relapse prevention and stopping treatment. The use of medication is integrated with a coherent approach to psychoeducation and behaviour change.

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Evidence-based guidelines for treating bipolar disorder: Revised third edition recommendations from the British Association for Psychopharmacology

Food neophobia and 'picky/fussy' eating in children: a review.

Objective: Health advocates have focused on the prevalence of advertising for calorie-dense low-nutrient foods as a significant contributor to the obesity epidemic This research tests the hypothesis that exposure to food advertising during TV viewing may also contribute to obesity by triggering automatic snacking of available food Design: In Experiments 1a and 1b, elementary-school-age children watched a cartoon that contained either food advertising or advertising for other products and received a snack while watching In Experiment 2, adults watched a TV program that included food advertising that promoted snacking and/or fun product benefits, food advertising that promoted nutrition benefits, or no food advertising The adults then tasted and evaluated a range of healthy to unhealthy snack foods in an apparently separate experiment Main Outcome Measures: Amount of snack foods consumed during and after advertising exposure Results: Children consumed 45% more when exposed to food advertising Adults consumed more of both healthy and unhealthy snack foods following exposure to snack food advertising compared to the other conditions In both experiments, food advertising increased consumption of products not in the presented advertisements, and these effects were not related to reported hunger or other conscious influences Conclusion: These experiments demonstrate the power of food advertising to prime automatic eating behaviors and thus influence far more than brand preference alone

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Priming Effects of Television Food Advertising on Eating Behavior

Effect of television advertisements for foods on food consumption in children.

Background
Despite widespread acceptance of the ‘biopsychosocial model’, the aetiology of mental health problems has provoked debate amongst researchers and practitioners for decades. The role of psychological factors in the development of mental health problems remains particularly contentious, and to date there has not been a large enough dataset to conduct the necessary multivariate analysis of whether psychological factors influence, or are influenced by, mental health. This study reports on the first empirical, multivariate, test of the relationships between the key elements of the biospychosocial model of mental ill-health.

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Psychological processes mediate the impact of familial risk, social circumstances and life events on mental health.

Background The relationship between well-being and mental ill health is complex; people may experience very low levels of well-being even in the absence of overt mental health problems. Aims This study tested the hypothesis that anxiety, depression and well-being have different causal determinants and psychological mediating mechanisms. Method The influence of causal and mediating factors on anxiety, depression and well-being were investigated in a cross-sectional online questionnaire survey hosted on a UK national broadcasting website. Results Multivariate conditional independence analysis of data from 27 397 participants revealed different association pathways for the two constructs. Anxiety and depression were associated with negative life events mediated by rumination; low levels of subjective well-being were associated with material deprivation and social isolation, mediated by adaptive coping style. Conclusions Our findings support the 'two continua' model of the relationship between psychological well-being and mental health problems, with implications for both treatment and prevention.

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Causal and mediating factors for anxiety, depression and well-being.

An examination of the relationship between shame, guilt and self-harm: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

The BBC Subjective Well-being scale (BBC-SWB) is a recently developed questionnaire designed to measure people’s subjective experiences across the wide breadth of domains commonly included in definitions of well-being. Although it has previously been shown to be a reliable and valid measure of subjective well-being in the general population with good psychometric properties, a limitation of the initial version was that it was developed using responses on a 4-point Likert-style scale. This paper presents the psychometric properties, validity and reliability of a revised version of the scale conducted using 5-point Likert-style responses and tests the hypothesis that the scale measures three underlying dimensions of well-being; psychological; physical health; and relationships. A sample of 23,341 participants completed the revised BBC-SWB as part of an on-line open-access battery of self-report measures. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the pre-hypothesised three factor structure, and internal consistency was investigated using Cronbach’s alpha. Concurrent validity was assessed through analysis of correlations with demographic variables, scores on the Goldberg Anxiety and Depression Scales, and the List of Threatening Experiences Questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analysis supported three factor structure of the measure in the whole sample and for subsamples of males and females. Both the total 24-item scale and the three subscales had good internal consistency, showed no evidence of floor and ceiling effects and correlated significantly with measures of concurrent validity. This study provided further confirmation of the validity and utility of the BBC Subjective Well-being scale. The modified version is a reliable and valid measure for the online assessment of subjective well-being in the general population with good psychometric properties.

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Eleanor Pontin

Papers

Effect of television advertisements for foods on food consumption in children.

Psychological processes mediate the impact of familial risk, social circumstances and life events on mental health.

Causal and mediating factors for anxiety, depression and well-being.

An examination of the relationship between shame, guilt and self-harm: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

A UK validation of a general measure of subjective well-being: The modified BBC subjective well-being scale (BBC-SWB)