Mental health conditions

Discontinuation of antidepressant could affect tapering patients, say experts

Exclusive: Paroxetine 20mg/10mL oral suspension is being discontinued, but experts have highlighted how these liquid formulations of antidepressants are "essential" for successfully tapering patients.…

Naloxone should be available over the counter, recommend Scottish government advisors

The Scottish Drug Deaths Taskforce report said that mainstreaming naloxone would help to reduce 'harmful stigma" around substance use.…

How we dropped down from being in the top five highest prescribers of antidepressants in England

Starting with care homes, before moving on to the community, deprescribing work by Sunderland Primary Care Network's pharmacy team led to a 3.2% reduction in the number of patients prescribed antidepressants in Sunderland.…

Pharmacogenomic testing may aid antidepressant prescribing, study results show

Researchers found that patients with major depressive disorder whose treatment was guided by genetic testing were more likely to receive an antidepressant with no drug–gene interaction.…

Antidepressant prescribing increases by 35% in six years

Prescriptions of antidepressants rose by 5.1% in 2021/2022, the sixth consecutive annual increase.…

Developing the clinical pharmacy technician role for mental health triaging

NHS England & NHS Improvement are building on the 'NHS long-term plan', focusing on the mental health provision within mental health services. Against this context, we wanted to improve the therapeutic inpatient mental health care within our service by developing a clinical pharmacy technic…

Pharmacies and opioid dependency: working together to better support recovery

One patient in particular led Rachel Britton to discover and develop the role of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in helping people with opioid dependency.…

NHS England to trial inclusion of depression in new medicine service

David Webb, chief pharmaceutical officer for England, told the 2022 Clinical Pharmacy Congress that the pilot was "just the tip of the iceberg in terms of opportunity" for pharmacy.…

Antidepressants do not improve quality of life long term, study finds

After two years of follow up, researchers found no statistical difference in health-related quality of life scores in those who took antidepressants compared with those who did not.…

A digital approach to improving valproate safety

The development of a virtual dashboard in Surrey has made it possible to identify women taking valproate who are approaching their annual review and highlight those who may need to see their GP.…