Current Psychiatry Reviews - Volume 14, Issue 1, 2018

Background: The term “deprescribing” has been coined to describe a specific intervention designed to optimize the reduction or cessation of medications for which benefits no longer outweigh the risks. As a wider concept, it may also come to embody a shifting perspective in the management of chronic illnesses where multiple, changing factors add complexity and nuance to the risk/benefit calculations that under Read More

Background: Deprescribing, or the active reduction or elimination of psychiatric medications, requires close collaboration between physician and patient. Purpose: This article outlines the use of shared decision making, peer support, and relapse prevention strategies as key elements of successful deprescribing in people with psychiatric disorders who are interested in decreasing or stopping psychiatric medications. Draw Read More

Background: Medications can have a wide range of symbolically mediated effects on patients and these effects can be positive or negative. When medications serve conflicting countertherapeutic goals, action, including deprescribing, may be needed to ameliorate them. Method: Drawing on work with complex, treatment-refractory patients, we have identified strategies to inform and guide practitioners encountering meaning Read More

Background: Standard guidelines for the management of chronic psychoses recommend the rapid initiation of treatment with antipsychotic medications (APs) and often, indefinite continuation. Ongoing treatment with APs is based primarily on evidence from AP discontinuation studies, which have several crucial flaws. Due to this equivocal evidence for continued treatment with APs and owing to their serious side effects Read More

Background: Caregivers of individuals with Eating Disorders (EDs) undergo significant caregiver burden and stress. Although the literature suggests that caregivers of eating disorders are significant supports in the client's recovery and relapse prevention, they receive limited research. Objective: This study explored the lived experience of caregivers of individuals with eating disorders. Method: Noblit and Hare's (1998) seven-step Read More

Background: Pornography Use (PU) has been defined as the viewing of explicit materials in the form of pictures and videos, in which people are performing intercourse with clearly exposed and visible genitals. The prevalence of PU has increased dramatically among adolescents, partly attributed to the wide availability of such online material. Objective: The aim of this systematic literature review is to map the research i Read More