The paper presents the results of one international study due by our team in the period of restrictions imposed by Covid-19, between March and June 2020.

To inform the population about the risks concerning the excessiv use of internet To prevent the effects of those behaviors which affects the global functioning of individuals

Questionnaire applied to a number of 549 subjects, 18 to 60 years old, 217 from Romania and 332 from other European and Asian countries

The results allowed us to verify the assumption that there is a change in communications needs of individuals, as well gender and age differences in terms of time spent on the internet during the covid period.

The issue of psycho-education regarding the awareness of dangers and the traps of the virtual era remain relevant.

There is evidence that psycho-education courses for caregivers of individuals with schizophrenia improve the short-term outcome of the condition. However, most of the outcome studies are limited to two-year follow-up.

This study is a five-year retrospective case-control follow-up of an original cohort of 63 patients and their 101 caregivers who completed a six-week Caregiver Psycho-education Programme (CPP) for schizophrenia and psychosis between 2002 and 2005, and 60 controls, matched for age, gender and severity of their psychotic illness.

Patients whose caregivers learned more from the six-week psycho-education course had a significantly longer time to relapse (P = 0.04) and a significantly shorter length of stay during their first relapse (P < 0.05). Patients whose caregivers attended the six-week psycho-education course (regardless of how much the caregivers learned) had a significantly better outcome than controls. This included a significantly smaller number of relapses (P < 0.01), longer time to relapse (P < 0.01), shorter length of stay during their first relapse (P < 0.01) and smaller number of bed days over five years (P < 0.01). The odds ratio of controls relapsing, although insignificant at one year, was 4.13 (1.85–9.21) at five years. Outcome was not affected by either the numbers of caregivers attending for each patient, or caregiver gender.

This study, which is among the first to examine outcome over five years, supports the efficacy of psycho-education for caregivers in improving outcome for patients. Caregivers should be encouraged to take up psycho-education where it is available.

A novel CBT-based intervention, tailored for young people, was developed in response to concerns about traditional diagnostically based approaches. Psychology of Emotions workshops use a normative approach to emotional difficulty instead of a diagnostic framework.

To evaluate the acceptability and efficacy of Psychology of Emotions workshops within an IAPT service for young people aged 16–25 years.

This was a mixed-methods study, evaluating routinely collected self-report measures of depression and anxiety, and qualitative feedback forms. The main outcomes were rates of attendance, change in symptom severity, and participant views of the intervention.

From January to September 2016, 595 young people were invited to attend the Psychology of Emotions workshops, of whom 350 (58.8%) attended at least one session. Young people who attended all six sessions (8.1%) experienced significant reductions in self-reported anxiety (d = .72) and depression (d = .58) and 35.5% were classified as recovered at completion. Those who attended at least two sessions (41.3%) reported smaller but significant improvements in anxiety (d = .42) and depression (d = .45); 22.0% were classified as recovered at the last session attended. Participants provided largely positive feedback about the intervention.

Psychology of Emotions is a promising treatment option, delivered outside of a diagnostic framework, for young people with mild to moderate mental health difficulties seen within IAPT services. Better understanding reasons for non-attendance might enable the intervention to be made accessible to more young people.

Provision of non-pharmacological interventions is a common policy objective for people with dementia, and support groups are an increasingly common intervention. However, there have been few attempts to synthesize evidence on the effectiveness of support groups for people with dementia. This review investigated the outcomes of support groups for people with dementia, explored participant characteristics and reviewed group formats.

A systematic review was undertaken and a narrative synthesis of data from 29 papers (reporting on 26 groups and a survey of a range of groups) was conducted.

Support groups seem acceptable to people with dementia. Qualitative studies report subjective benefits for participants but there is limited evidence of positive outcomes based on quantitative data. Samples have tended to be homogenous and this may limit the generalizability of findings.

Although qualitative studies will remain important in this area, further mixed-methods randomized controlled trials (RCTs)or comparison group studies with longer follow-up periods are needed to strengthen the evidence base.

The number of people with dementia is increasing rapidly. Providing care to a relative or friend with dementia may lead to serious mental health problems. Internet interventions may offer opportunities to improve the availability and accessibility of (cost)effective interventions to reduce family caregivers’ psychological distress. This study describes the acceptability of a guided self-help Internet intervention “mastery over dementia” (MoD), aimed at reducing caregivers’ psychological distress, in terms of reach, adherence and user evaluation.

The sample for this study is the experimental group that participated in the (cost)effectiveness trial of MoD (N = 149). Data on characteristics of family caregivers and people with dementia, completion and user evaluation were used and analyzed with descriptive statistics, χ2and T-tests.

MoD reaches a wide variety of caregivers, also those aged 75+, having a relative with a recent diagnosis of dementia or living in a care home. However, the percentage of caregivers who did not complete all eight lessons was rather high (55.7%). Among the completers (N = 66; 44.3%) were significantly more spouses, caregivers living in the same household, older caregivers, and those caring for somebody with another formal diagnosis than Alzheimer's disease. Caregivers’ evaluation showed that females rated higher on the comprehensibility of the lessons and feedback and spent less time on the lessons.

The guided self-help Internet intervention MoD is acceptable for a broad range of family caregivers of people with dementia. The next step is to substantiate its (cost)effectiveness.

Employers such as the Armed Forces (AF) and emergency services, who predictably expose their staff to potentially traumatic events (PTEs), often provide psycho-educational briefings in an attempt to mitigate possible adverse psychological sequelae. Within the military, psycho-educational briefings are widely used, particularly following exposure to PTEs on operations. The aim of this review was to evaluate the efficacy of these interventions and make appropriate recommendations.

A search of Medline, PsycINFO and EMBASE was conducted, bibliographies of retrieved articles were searched and experts in the field were consulted.

Two surveys and seven intervention studies were identified for inclusion in the review. Only three studies were randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Overall, the review found some evidence of benefit of psycho-educational interventions but it was not consistent across studies or outcomes and effects were small. However, there was also little evidence to suggest that they caused harm. There was some evidence that the beneficial effects may be greater for those who have been exposed to a higher number of PTEs.

Given the high operational tempo currently faced by coalition forces personnel, there remains a pressing need to identify the most effective way of minimizing the impact of exposure to potentially traumatic deployment incidents. To date, few psycho-educational interventions designed to prevent deployment-related psychological ill-health have been evaluated systematically in methodologically robust studies. The review recommends that future interventions are theoretically based and evaluated in cluster RCTs that examine both process and outcome variables.