Category: Podcast

In this podcast from the Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (ACAMH), SASH researchers Dr Naomi Warne and Dr Helen Bould talk about their research on disordered eating and self-harm.

Discussion points include;

• The comorbidity between disordered eating, self-harm, and also emotional dysregulation
• The three potential mediators of the association between emotional dysregulation and subsequent disordered eating and self-harm.
• The relevance of social cognition and experiences of being bullied as potential mediators
• How mediating pathways appear to differ by sex and outcomes
• Suggestions for interventions based on potential useful targets for the prevention and treatment of disordered eating and self-harm
• Advice for Child and Adolescent Mental Health professionals and policy makers.

In this podcast from the Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (ACAMH), SASH researcher Lizzy Winstone talks about some of the research from her PhD looking at the relationship between adolescent social media use and mental health

The focus of this podcast is on her JCCP Advances paper ‘Adolescent social media user types and their mental health and well-being, results from a longitudinal survey of 13 to 14-year-olds in the United Kingdom’ (doi.org/10.1002/jcv2.12071).

Lizzy sets the scene by detailing a summary of the paper and sharing insight into the methodology used for the research.

In previous studies, distinctions are made between active and passive social media. Lizzy explains why her paper suggests that this distinction may be too simplistic and comments on the four classes of social media users identified in her paper – high communicators, moderate communicators, broadcasters, and minimal users – including how each of these different groups behave.

Lizzy then highlights the key findings from the paper and provides further commentary on her finding that moderate social media screen time was beneficial to well-being, in comparison to no use at all.

Lizzy also discusses if there were any gender differences in her research, plus what the implications are of her findings overall for Child and Adolescent Mental Health professionals.

You can also access an 8 minute video abstract of Lizzy discussing the paper here

In this podcast from the Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (ACAMH), Dr Abigail Russell discusses suicide and self-harm with freelance journalist Jo Carlowe. Abigail discusses her paper on inflammation and self-harm, its findings and implications moving forward. As well as the cohort study (ALSPAC), to school interventions and creating change through national dialogue.

Abby says “The research over the last 30 years, has shown that facing bad or adverse experiences early in life leads to people being at a higher risk of self-harm or attempting to end their life, but we don’t yet understand why this happens. What we do know is that early experiences can impact on the way the body works, changing hormones, influencing chemicals around our genes and activating the immune system, for example. These impacts on the body might increase our risk of self-harm”

To read more about the research you can access the full paper here

Russell AE, Heron J, Gunnell D, Ford T, Hemani G, Joinson C, Moran P, Relton C, Suderman M, Mars B. Pathways between early-life adversity and adolescent self-harm: the mediating role of inflammation in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2019 Oct;60(10):1094-1103. doi: 10.1111/jcpp.13100.