Janey

Janey's Cochrane blog

I am a mental health service user with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and I am employed by Rethink and the Department of Health to write the plain language summaries for the Schizophrenia Group of the Cochrane Collaboration. 

Find about the Cochrane Collaboration research in the Research looking at treatment section.

Although plain language summaries of Cochrane reviews have been approved by the Cochrane Schizophrenia Group, the blogs are entirely my opinion.

Posts by Janey

Janey's plain language summary blog: Dance therapy for schizophrenia

30 December 2009 | Posted by Janey | 0 comments
Topics: Someone who has experienced mental illness, Medication and therapies

The Cochrane Collaboration will review all treatments for an illness, not just medication, providing they are based on randomized control trials.

Janey's plain language summary blog: Chlorpromazine

30 December 2009 | Posted by Janey | 0 comments
Topics: Someone who has experienced mental illness, Medication and therapies

Like most people who have been a mental health service user in the UK for a while, I have spent time on the medication chlorpromazine. 

Janey's plain language summary blog: antipsychotic drugs for schizophrenia

06 November 2009 | Posted by Janey | 5 comments
Topics: Someone who has experienced mental illness, Medication and therapies

I’ve written a review about one of the newer medications – aripiprazole or Abilify.  The company that make it claim that it is a ‘third generation’ antipsychotic and acts on the brain in a different way to either the first or second generation ones. 

Janey's plain language summary blog: Cannabis and schizophrenia

06 November 2009 | Posted by Janey | 0 comments
Topics: Someone who has experienced mental illness, Medication and therapies

I have now written a number of plain language summaries for the reviews in the Cochrane Collaboration.  Every time I read a new review I think ‘oh, good this will contain the answers to all my questions on a specific subject’.  Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that.

Janey's plain language summary blog: Catatonia

13 July 2009 | Posted by Janey | 0 comments
Topics: Someone who has experienced mental illness, Health professionals, Medication and therapies, Physical health, Recovery

This is my first blog so I’d better explain what I am doing.  I read the Cochrane review (carefully) and then write a plain language summary for it.  Read the plain English summary relating to this blog.  have been lucky enough to go on the four day course that the Cochrane Schizophrenia Group runs to teach people how to write Cochrane reviews.  It was quite detailed and we learned how to identify relevant clinical trials from everything that has been published in the world.  We also learned what good data was and how to do the statistics.