Text messaging: The next gen of therapy in mental health A psychotherapy tool in real-time that enhances care

In the US, approximately 19% of all adults have a diagnosable mental illness. Clinic-based services may fall short of meeting patient needs. In the first randomized controlled trial of its kind, a team investigated the impact of a texting intervention as an add-on to a mental health treatment program versus one without it. A new study finds that a text-messaging-based intervention can be a safe, clinically promising and feasible tool to augment care for people with serious mental illness
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Study: Screen Time Has Little Impact on Kids’ Social Skills

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Social Media Messages to Inspire Exercise May Backfire

A new Australian study suggests an Instagram movement to promote better health is flawed. Researchers discovered the images associated with an online program appear to make many women feel worse about themselves and their bodies rather than inspiring them to exercise.
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Smartphone Games Used to Detect Cognitive Decline

A new study from the UK finds that popular cellphones games could provide a new tool to help doctors spot early signs of cognitive decline. Click here to read PsychCentral article

Left to their own devices: children's social media and mental health

The aim of this report is to both understand what children, young people and practitioners have to say about the impact of social media on mental health and wellbeing and to shed light on the social media experiences of vulnerable children. Click here to get link to article

Health Professionals Need to Be Cautious on Social Media

For health professionals on social media, posting just one negative comment in frustration may harm their credibility with current or potential clients. Read PsychCentral article here

Repeated Exposure to Media Coverage of Traumas Can Fuel Distress

Repeated exposure to media coverage of collective traumas, such as mass shootings or natural disasters, can fuel a cycle of distress, according to a new study. Read Psych Central article here

Suicide prevention: cross-government plan

The government has published the first cross-government suicide prevention plan. The plan has a focus on how social media and the latest technology – such as predictive analytics and artificial intelligence – can identify those at risk of suicide. Click here for link

Linguistic red flags from Facebook posts can predict future depression diagnoses

Research finds that the language people use in their Facebook posts can predict a future diagnosis of depression as accurately as the tools clinicians use in medical settings to screen for the disease.  Click here to read further.

Social media impacts on young people’s wellbeing need to be better understood, says Centre for Mental Health

Social media interact with young people’s mental health and wellbeing in many ways that need to be better understood if we are to help young people to navigate the challenges of twenty-first century life, according to a briefing published today by Centre for Mental Health. Click here for article

Increase in news coverage of mental health issues has led to nearly a third of people feeling 'less alone'

An “unprecedented” level of media coverage of mental health issues in the past year has resulted in 31 per cent of people feeling “less alone”, according to a poll conducted on behalf of mental health charity Mind. Click here for PressGazette article

Serial Sharing of Threat News Can Amplify Bias & Fear

A new investigation helps shed light on how news stories about potential threats become more negative, inaccurate and hysterical when passed from person to person. Researchers from the University of Warwick, discovered that even drawing the public’s attention to balanced, neutral facts does not calm this hysteria. Click here to read PsychCentral article

NICE says that online and mobile programme Deprexis could help adults with depression get faster access to care and it should be tested out in NHS services. Click here for NICE article

Burns challenges – A social media dictated phenomena in the younger generation

Burns Open , Volume 0 , Issue 0 

‘Burns challenges’ leading to battle scars are a current youth culture phenomenon propagated by social media. Platforms such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook have been noted to show adolescents perform these challenges resulting in an increasing incidence of flame, friction or chemical burns of varying severity.

Creative ways to demonstrate stealth by performing these burns injuries is a common occurrence and correlates to a rising incidence of these burns. Methods of social media clearly fuel this by publicising events. It is important to be vigilant in identifying this aetiology of burn injury, not to confuse it with non-accidental injury or psychotic deliberate self-harm, and to educate patients of the long-term consequences. Further studies should be done into understanding the significant influence social media has on risky behaviours in children and adolescents, and the general public, especially social media sites, should be educated on the extent of harm these challenges have so that hosting of these videos and contents can be better regulated.

UHCW Research: Lopa Patel

How visible are you as an occupational therapist?

You are on Facebook, you Tweet, you Snapchat, you Instagram, but how well established is your online professional profile?
How does anyone outside your immediate locality know about the great work you do? Click here for RCOT article

Top digital communications tips for STPs

In order to engage stakeholders, staff and the public with the work of your sustainability transformation partnership (STP) organisations need to develop a strong communications strategy.

This quick guide from NHS Employers contains top digital communications tips to help you effectively communicate the work your STP is doing to all interested parties.

Recruitment through Social Media

A new case study from NHS Employers about how Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (NUTH) developed a social media strategy to engage with a wider audience, improve the quality and quantity of candidates, and target passive job seekers.

The trust has organically over a two-year period grown it’s followers to 23,000 people on Facebook, reaching an average of 52,000 people via posts each week. This allows them to promote working at NUTH as a package deal, enabling the recruitment team to target and connect with specific workforce groups and keeping people informed of opportunities.

Read the full case study from Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to find out more about how they developed a media strategy to aid nurse recruitment.


See also Harrogate's social media journey:

In this blog, Richard Wormwell, a resourcing manager at Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust, shares his personal experience of using a digital advertising agency to help the trust develop a social media recruitment campaign. He shares how trust set up a dedicated Facebook page and the engagement that went on to ensure it reached a wide audience with engaging content.

Stress and social media fuel mental health crisis among girls

Girls and young women are experiencing a “gathering crisis” in their mental health linked to conflict with friends, fears about their body image and pressures created by social media, experts have warned. Click here for news article

Social media and young people’s mental health and wellbeing

RSPH and the Young Health Movement have published a new report, #StatusOfMind, examining the positive and negative effects of social media on young people’s health.

The report includes a league table of social media platforms according to their impact on young people’s mental health. YouTube tops the table as the most positive with Instagram and Snapchat coming out as the most detrimental to young people’s mental health and wellbeing.

Online support: investigating the role of public online forums in mental health

This report was written by the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at Demos in partnership with The King’s Fund. It looks at the large amounts of mental health related discussion taking place on public online forums, and explores whether computational techniques can provide robust, actionable insight from these conversations. It describes the collection and analysis of one million publicly available forum posts and addresses the technical and ethical challenges posed by the collection and analysis of online forum data.