NICE is the UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence - "the independent organisation responsible for providing national guidance on the promotion of good health and the prevention and treatment of ill health." Although their guidance applies particularly to England and Wales, the opinions they come up with are very carefully weighed and can be of use to health (and education) professionals wherever they work.

Here are a disparate pair of subjects for a research update.  One is the recent NICE guideline on " ...

I'm a bit slow on reporting this, but at the end of May the UK's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) published a guideline on "Early management of persistent non-specific low back pain".   I've blogged before about NICE.  They publish very widely with, for example, 82 guidelines on musculoskeletal disorders generally.  They have also recently launched NHS evidence which aims " ... to provide easy access to a comprehensive evidence base for everyone in health and social care who takes decisions about treatments or the use of resources - including clinicians, public health professionals, commissioners and service managers - thus improving health and patient care. It will build on NICE's significant international reputation for developing high quality evidence-based guidance.

Yesterday NICE - the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in England & Wales - published guidance on a diverse range of fifteen clinical, technology, interventional and public health subjects.  Their clinical guidance on Medicines Adherence  interested me, as too did their public health guidance on Promoting Physical Activity for Children and Young People.  The subject of this post is the clinical guidance on Antisocial Personality Disorder and in my next post, I'll talk about their guidance on Borderline Personality Disorder.  As Dr Tim Kendall, Joint Director, National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health, states: "Approximately 2 million people in the UK have personality disorders, with antisocial and borderline disorders being the most common.

Last month, NICE - the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in England & Wales - issued a guideline on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).  In the associated press release they commented "ADHD is a common behavioural disorder in children and young people estimated to affect up to 3% of school-age children and young people in the UK, and about 2% of adults worldwide. It usually starts in early childhood and some people will continue to have ADHD as adults. Severe ADHD is sometimes known as ‘hyperkinetic disorder'. The symptoms of ADHD include: being inattentive (unable to concentrate for very long or finish a task); hyperactivity (fidgety and unable to sit still); and impulsive (speaking without thinking about the consequences). It is an extremely distressing disorder, affecting the person as well as their families and carers."

The fourth and final session of the "Non-pharmacological management of depression" SIGN seminar was entitled "Self help, guided and alternative/complementary therapies".<

There was some discussion at the SIGN "Non-pharmacological management of depression" seminar about the possible importance of the therapeutic alliance in depression treatment.  Profe

This is the 7^th blog post in a series reviewing the recent Scottish Intercollegiate Guideline Network's (SIGN) draft guideline for "Non-pharmacological management of depression".  I gave more background details in the first post of the series.  This post covers the third session of the guideline presentation seminar.  The session was entitled "Effectiveness of psychological therapies in depression 2" and there were three speakers.  Professor Kevin Power, Area Head of Psychological Therapies, NHS Tayside, talked about "Counselling, marital, family and reminiscence therapy".  Kevin said there were comparatively few good randomized controlled trials on counselling interventions specifically for patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder.  SIGN gave a Grade