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This paper concerns the early-phase development of a group self-development and personality exploration programme (DEEPdown) grounded in the Five Factor Model. A university pilot study wherein students completed the first iteration of the DEEPdown programme (n = 29), and a clinician survey (n = 36) were undertaken in parallel. University students completed feedback forms and focus groups; clinicians viewed a video summary. Data were analysed using quantitative and thematic analysis. Students consistently reported various positive experiences (e.g. space to reflect) and helpful in-session events (e.g. normative personality education). Their mean satisfaction level was 4.5 out of 5 (SD = 0.51), and in response to 'I would recommend DEEPdown to friends and/or family', 50% strongly agreed and 50% agreed. 27 of 29 students completed the 7-week programme. Clinician feedback was mostly favourable (e.g. 78% indicated that they would consider DEEPdown training), yet caution was also indicated (e.g. only 61% would recommend DEEPdown to a client). Key identified outcomes across both studies included greater self-awareness, self-acceptance, and self-compassion. Concerns surrounding insufficient session duration and content complexity arose in both studies. DEEPdown (iteration 1) was broadly acceptable to both students and clinicians. While further refinement and empirical evaluations in different settings are needed, DEEPdown has the potential to positively impact upon important aspects of well-being. To encourage collaboration from the scientific community, we have released DEEPdown as an open source intervention that is freely usable, modifiable, and empirically testable without author permission; all programme content is available on an open source platform (https://osf.io/9eysm/)., Author(s): Conal Twomey [sup.1] [sup.2] , Gary O'Reilly [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.7886.1, 0000 0001 0768 2743, School of Psychology, University College Dublin, , Belfield, 4, Dublin, Ireland (2) grid.424617.2, [...]

Extant evidence indicates that there is a stronger link between homework difficulties and ADHD than in the general population of children. In addition, parents' involvement in education is an important factor in academic success. Despite the well-established challenges that homework presents to children with ADHD, none of the existing treatment protocols or standard therapeutic options are specifically designed to target homework difficulties. This study aims to identify, describe and appraise studies that have empirically evaluated interventions to optimise the homework performance of children with ADHD. The three databases searched were: Medline, PsycInfo, Embase The keywords 'ADHD' and 'Homework' were used in combination to search the three databases. The search was designed to identify therapeutic interventions which sought to aid parents of children with ADHD to optimise their child's homework performance. The systematic review included 14 studies. The quality of the trials was mixed and generally low; for the other trial types (n = 5) STROBE scores ranged from 6 to 14. The literature in this field points to increased awareness of the need to focus on specific areas of functional impairment in the lives of children with ADHD and to tailor therapeutic supports to enhance a child's educational trajectory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BackgroundMethodsResultsDiscussionCompassion Focussed Therapy for Psychosis (CFT-P) aims to increase self-compassion.To understand low referral rates 37clinicians in an Irish mental health service completed a questionnaire about their attitudes towards CFT-P.Findings indicated good overall acceptability of the described CFT-P group and confidence in its meaningful impacts. This pointed to more pragmatic reasons underlying the low referral rate such as concerns around the group format, some doubts about the suitability of CFT-P model, and difficulties with attendance.Possible ways to improve engagement include one to one contact, limiting group size, good communication with both clinicians and service users (e.g. open information sessions around the content and design of the group), and blended (online and in-person) delivery. Even in the presence of good clinician acceptability of the CFT-P group, there were various perceived barriers to referral and engagement which may apply to similar interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fifth edition of the Stanford‐Binet Intelligence scales allows ‘full scale’ IQ (FSIQ) to be estimated using an abridged version of the test—the abbreviated battery IQ (ABIQ). Set within a public early intervention team service, the current cross‐sectional study investigated the utility of the ABIQ in estimating FSIQ for 40 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) aged 3–5 years. A strong ABIQ‐FSIQ association was yielded (r = 0.89; r2 = 0.808) and the ABIQ did not over‐estimate mean FSIQ above a clinically‐relevant threshold; however, clinically significant over‐estimation occurred in 17.5% of individual cases. While the findings provide support for the utility of the ABIQ in estimating FSIQ for young children with ASD, caution relating to the over‐estimation of FSIQ is warranted. Careful clinical judgment–ideally based on examination of previous cognitive assessment results (if available), thorough interactional observations, and close multi‐disciplinary consultation—is necessary to determine the applicability of the ABIQ to individual cases. Autism Res2018, 11: 503–508. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Lay Summary: We investigated the utility of a shortened version of the Stanford‐Binet Intelligence Scales in estimating IQ for 40 young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The findings provide qualified support for the instrument: acceptably accurate IQ estimation was achieved for most cases; but not so for a sizeable minority (17.5%). Careful clinical judgment is necessary to determine the applicability of the ABIQ to individual cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To investigate the effectiveness of a freely available computerised cognitive behavioural therapy programme (MoodGYM) for depression (primary outcome), anxiety and general psychological distress in adults. Method: We searched PsycINFO, CINAHL Plus, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Social Science Citation Index and references from identified papers. To assess MoodGYM’s effectiveness, we conducted random effects meta-analysis of identified randomised controlled trials. Results: Comparisons from 11 studies demonstrated MoodGYM’s effectiveness for depression symptoms at post-intervention, with a small effect size (g = 0.36, 95% confidence interval: 0.17–0.56; I2 = 78%). Removing the lowest quality studies (k = 3) had minimal impact; however, adjusting for publication bias reduced the effect size to a non-significant level (g = 0.17, 95% confidence interval: −0.01 to 0.38). Comparisons from six studies demonstrated MoodGYM’s effectiveness for anxiety symptoms at post-intervention, with a medium effect size (g = 0.57, 95% confidence interval: 0.20–0.94; I2 = 85%). Although comparisons from six studies did not yield significance for MoodGYM’s effectiveness for general psychological distress symptoms, the small effect size approached significance (g = 0.34, 95% confidence interval: −0.04 to 0.68; I2 = 79%). Both the type of setting (clinical vs non-clinical) and MoodGYM-developer authorship in randomised controlled trials had no meaningful influence on results; however, the results were confounded by the type of control deployed, level of clinician guidance, international region of trial and adherence to MoodGYM. Conclusions: The confounding influence of several variables, and presence of publication bias, means that the results of this meta-analysis should be interpreted with caution. Tentative support is provided for MoodGYM’s effectiveness for symptoms of depression and general psychological distress. The programme’s medium effect on anxiety symptoms demonstrates its utility for people with this difficulty. MoodGYM benefits from its free accessibility over the Internet, but adherence rates can be problematic and at the extreme can fall below 10%. We conclude that MoodGYM is best placed as a population-level intervention that is likely to benefit a sizeable minority of its users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Contemporary casemix systems for health services need to ensure that payment rates adequately account for actual resource consumption based on patients' needs for services. It has been argued that functioning information, as one important determinant of health service provision and resource use, should be taken into account when developing casemix systems. However, there has to date been little systematic collation of the evidence on the extent to which the addition of functioning information into existing casemix systems adds value to those systems with regard to the predictive power and resource variation explained by the groupings of these systems. Thus, the objective of this research was to examine the value of adding functioning information into casemix systems with respect to the prediction of resource use as measured by costs and length of stay.Methods: A systematic literature review was performed. Peer-reviewed studies, published before May 2014 were retrieved from CINAHL, EconLit, Embase, JSTOR, PubMed and Sociological Abstracts using keywords related to functioning ('Functioning', 'Functional status', 'Function*, 'ICF', 'International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health', 'Activities of Daily Living' or 'ADL') and casemix systems ('Casemix', 'case mix', 'Diagnosis Related Groups', 'Function Related Groups', 'Resource Utilization Groups' or 'AN-SNAP'). In addition, a hand search of reference lists of included articles was conducted. Information about study aims, design, country, setting, methods, outcome variables, study results, and information regarding the authors' discussion of results, study limitations and implications was extracted.Results: Ten included studies provided evidence demonstrating that adding functioning information into casemix systems improves predictive ability and fosters homogeneity in casemix groups with regard to costs and length of stay. Collection and integration of functioning information varied across studies. Results suggest that, in particular, DRG casemix systems can be improved in predicting resource use and capturing outcomes for frail elderly or severely functioning-impaired patients.Conclusion: Further exploration of the value of adding functioning information into casemix systems is one promising approach to improve casemix systems ability to adequately capture the differences in patient's needs for services and to better predict resource use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fifth edition of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence scales allows 'full scale' IQ (FSIQ) to be estimated using an abridged version of the test-the abbreviated battery IQ (ABIQ). Set within a public early intervention team service, the current cross-sectional study investigated the utility of the ABIQ in estimating FSIQ for 40 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) aged 3-5 years. A strong ABIQ-FSIQ association was yielded (r = 0.89; r 2  = 0.808) and the ABIQ did not over-estimate mean FSIQ above a clinically-relevant threshold; however, clinically significant over-estimation occurred in 17.5% of individual cases. While the findings provide support for the utility of the ABIQ in estimating FSIQ for young children with ASD, caution relating to the over-estimation of FSIQ is warranted. Careful clinical judgment-ideally based on examination of previous cognitive assessment results (if available), thorough interactional observations, and close multi-disciplinary consultation-is necessary to determine the applicability of the ABIQ to individual cases. Autism Res 2018, 11: 503-508. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc., Lay Summary: We investigated the utility of a shortened version of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales in estimating IQ for 40 young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The findings provide qualified support for the instrument: acceptably accurate IQ estimation was achieved for most cases; but not so for a sizeable minority (17.5%). Careful clinical judgment is necessary to determine the applicability of the ABIQ to individual cases., (© 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)