mental health Tag
26 Mar Mental Health Issues Increase Hospital Readmissions
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Brian K. Ahmedani, PhD, LMSW
Research Scientist
Henry Ford Health System
Center for Health Policy & Health Services Research
Detroit, MI 48202
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Ahmedani: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have begun penalizing hospitals for excessive all-cause hospital readmissions within 30 days after discharge for pneumonia, heart failure, and myocardial infarction. We wanted to determine the influence of comorbid mental health and substance use conditions on the rate of 30-day hospital readmissions for individuals with these conditions. Overall, individuals with a comorbid mental health condition were readmitted to the hospital within 30-days approximately 5% more often than those without one (21.7% versus 16.5%). Comorbid depression and anxiety were associated with a 30-day readmission rate of more than 23% each, overall.
19 Mar Auditory Hallucinations Surprisingly Varied, Complex and Physical
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr Angela Woods
Associate Editor, BMJ Medical Humanities Journal
Senior Lecturer in Medical Humanities
Deputy Director, Centre for Medical Humanities
Durham University
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Woods: We’ve known for a long time that hearing voices, or auditory hallucinations, is reported by people with a wide range of psychiatric diagnoses as well as by those who have no diagnosis. 5–15 per cent of adults will hear voices at some point during their lives – in circumstances that may be related to spiritual experiences, bereavement, trauma, sensory deprivation or impairment, as well as mental and emotional distress. However, what we know about voices clinically and empirically comes from a small handful of studies, typically conducted in mental health settings with patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia using quantitative scales and measures. Our study asked people to describe, in their own words, what it is like to hear voices. We designed an open-ended online questionnaire which was completed by 153 people with a range of diagnoses, including 26 who had never had a psychiatric diagnosis.
Our study found that a large majority of participants described hearing multiple voices (81%) with characterful qualities (70%). While fear, anxiety, depression and stress were often associated with voices, 31% of participants reported positive and 32% neutral emotions. To our surprise less than half the participants reported hearing literally auditory voices; 45% reported either thought-like or mixed experiences. Perhaps the most startling finding concerned the physicality of voices. Bodily sensations while hearing voices were reported by 66% of participants – these included feelings of tingling, numbness, burning, pressure, and a sense of being distanced or disconnected from the body.
12 Feb Patients with Tourette Syndrome Likely To Have Additional Psychiatric Symptoms
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Carol Mathews
Professor, Psychiatry
UCSF School of Medicine
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Mathews: The background for this study is that, as a part of ongoing genetic studies of Tourette Syndrome, the Tourette Syndrome Association International Genetics Collaborative (TSAICG) has collected a wealth of information about commonly co-occurring psychiatric disorders in individuals with Tourette Syndrome and their families, providing us with an opportunity to explore questions about Tourette Syndrome that are relevant to individuals with Tourette Syndrome, their families, and their treating clinicians.
12 Feb Patients With Mental Disorders Have Increased Risk of Death
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Elizabeth Walker, PhD, MPH, MAT
FIRST Postdoctoral Fellow
Center for Behavioral Health Policy Studies
Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University
Medical Research: What is the background for this study?
Response: Mental disorders are a major cause of disability globally and are associated with premature mortality. Quantifying and understanding excess mortality among people with mental disorders can inform approaches for reducing this burden. The purpose of this study was to systematically review the literature in order to estimate individual- and population-level mortality rates associated with mental disorders. We conducted a comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis, which included 203 studies from 29 countries.
Medical Research: What are the main findings?
Response: We estimated that 8 million deaths worldwide per year are attributable to mental disorders. People with mental disorders have over 2 times the risk of mortality compared to the general population or people without mental disorders. This translates to a median of 10 years of life lost. In total, 67.3% of people with mental disorders died from natural causes, 17.5% from unnatural causes, and the remainder from unknown causes.
10 Feb Study Addresses Mental Health Concerns In Professional Footballers
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Prof.dr. Judith K. Sluiter Principal Investigator
Manager KMKA: Kenniscentrum Medische Keuringen in Arbeid
Nationaal secretaris voor ICOH (International Commission on Occupational Health)
Coronel Instituut voor Arbeid en Gezondheid, Academisch Medisch Centrum / UvA Meibergdreef Amsterdam
Medical Research: What is the background for this study?
Prof. Sluiter: Professional footballers contain a group of employees working in a job with specific job demands. The occupational guidance and prevention of decreased work functioning of workers in these kinds of jobs should receive more attention. The mental health of professional footballers receive less attention compared to their physical health. We studied the prevalence of self-reported mental health problems and psychosocial difficulties in a group of current and former professional footballers, and we explored the association between having had psychosocial stressors and the health conditions under study.
Medical Research: What are the main findings?
Response: The response rate was 29% with available data from 253 footballers. In current players, the prevalence of mental health complaints ranged from 5% (burnout) to 26% (anxiety/depression). In former players, the prevalence ranged from 16% (burnout) to 39% (anxiety/depression). A small percentage of players had low self-esteem (3-5%). One quarter to two-fifth of the players showed adverse nutrition behaviour. Small but significant association between experiencing lower social support (OR=1.1) and having had recent life events (OR=1.4-1.6) and mental health complaints were found in current players. Having had severe injuries was associated with better nutrition behavior. In former players, having had life events showed a preventive effect on smoking (OR=0.4) and having had previous surgery was significantly associated with current smoking behavior (OR=1.9).
09 Feb Mental Health Workers Frequently Risk Assault at Work
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Erin L. Kelly PhD Post Doctoral Scholar
Health Services Research Center
University of California, Los Angeles, California
MedicalResearch: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Kelly: Mental health facilities can be hazardous workplaces. Nationally, compared to their counterparts in other healthcare settings, mental health workers are at the highest risk for patient assaults. Many studies have focused on predictors for assault such as gender, years of experience, or the position that staff hold in the hospital, which can account for a small amount of violence. However, psychiatric care is largely about relationships. Our study examined how conflicts with patients and coworkers, and how people react to conflict, influences their risk of assault.
In our study, 70% of staff at a large public mental hospital were assaulted in a single year, which is closer to the lifetime assault rate for mental health workers. We also found that the likelihood of assault is predicted by conflicts when we also include stress reactions to conflict as a moderator. We found that workers who reported being less reactive to conflict but experienced a great deal of conflict, with staff or patients, were at the highest risk of assault. This could mean that people who aren't afraid of conflict with patients are more likely to jump in with agitated patients or that people who are insensitive to conflict are missing important social cues and being assaulted more often. However, despite the similarity in the relationships of staff conflict and patient conflict with assault risk, it’s possible that the direction of the relationship between staff conflict and assault may be different. For example, mental health staff who have a lot of conflict with their co-workers may be isolated and therefore a target for assault by patients.
09 Feb Parental Performance Influences Genetic Neurodevelopmental Disability
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Andres Moreno De Luca, MD
Investigator and Resident Physician
Autism & Developmental Medicine Institute
Department of Radiology Geisinger Health System
Danville, PA 17822
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: The main finding of our study is that family background contributes to the variability in cognitive, behavioral, and motor performance seen in children with 16p11.2 deletions, and perhaps other genetic syndromes, and this may be attributed in part to genetic background effects.
In the general population the best predictor of a child’s outcomes in traits such as cognitive ability, height, BMI, etc. is the biparental mean performance in such domains and this is due in part to genetic background. For example, if a child’s parents have IQ scores of 130 and 110, it is expected that the child will have an IQ within 2 standard deviations of 120 (bi-parental mean). However, when studying individuals with genetic conditions, most researchers tend to overlook the influence of familial/genetic background on the affected child’s outcomes and commonly attribute the manifestations (or lack thereof) to the genetic mutation alone.
This creates confusion when studying children with neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism, which show significant clinical variability, as some children with a specific genetic mutation (e.g. deletion 16p11.2) may have intellectual disability without autism, while other children with the same mutation may have autism without intellectual disability. Based on these observations, some researchers have argued that deletion 16p11.2 is incompletely penetrant. However, our study showed that the 16p11.2 deletion has a detrimental effect on cognitive and behavioral performance for all children, but the clinical status (affected vs. unaffected) and ultimate performance level is influenced by the parental performance.
09 Feb Study Demonstrates External Control of Two Thoughts In The Stream of Consciousness
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Ezequiel Morsella, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Neuroscience Department of Psychology
San Francisco State University Assistant Adjunct Professor
Department of Neurology University of California, San Francisco
Boardmember, Scientific Advisory Board
Institute of Cognitive Neurology (INECO), Buenos Aires
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Morsella: Previous studies have demonstrated that, under certain experimental conditions, conscious processes in the brain can function in a way that resembles reflexes. In past research, a single ‘high-level’ thought (e.g., the name of a visually-presented object) was triggered involuntarily by external stimuli. The current research is the first to trigger, not one, but two high-level unintentional conscious thoughts. In this experiment, participants were presented with an object (e.g., the picture of a star) and instructed to not subvocalize (i.e., name in one’s head but not aloud) the name of the object nor count the number of letters comprising the name of the object. On many trials, participants experienced both cognitions (e.g., “STAR” and “4”), even though these thoughts were against the intentions of the participant. Thus, this is the first demonstration of external control of two thoughts in the stream of consciousness. This research is based in part on the pioneering investigations of Wegner, of Gollwitzer, and of Ach.
05 Feb Study Addresses Factors Prolonging ED Visits For Psychiatric Patients
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Michael Wilson, MD, PhD, FAAEM
Attending Physician, UCSD Department of Emergency Medicine
Director, Department of Emergency Medicine Behavioral Emergencies Research (DEMBER) lab UC San Diego Health System
MedicalResearch: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Wilson: Emergency departments (EDs) nationwide are crowded. Although psychiatric patients do not make up the largest proportion of repeat visitors to the emergency department, psychiatric patients stay longer in the ED than almost any other type of patient. So, it’s really important to find out things about these patients that may predict longer stays.
In this study, we looked at patients on involuntary mental health holds. The reasoning is simple: patients on involuntary mental health holds aren’t free to leave the ED. So, the only thing that should really matter is how quickly an Emergency department can release them from the involuntary hold. Surprisingly, though, this wasn’t the only thing that correlated with longer stays.
04 Feb Patients With Schizophrenia Lack Sufficient Dopamine in Brain
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Mark Slifstein, PhD
Associate Professor of Neurobiology (In Psychiatry) Dept. of Psychiatry
Columbia University NYSP
Dr New York NY 10032
MedicalResearch: What is the background for this study?
Dr. Slifstein: There has been considerable basic and clinical neuroscience research showing that the neurotransmitter dopamine plays a role in tuning cognitive processes taking place in the cortex. It has long been thought that dopamine is involved in the cognitive difficulties experienced by patients with schizophrenia, but it has been challenging to study dopamine in the cortex and other parts of the brain except in a deep structure rich in this neurotransmitter and its receptors, the striatum. In our study, we used an experimental design with Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging that allowed us to infer the amount of dopamine in the cortex.
25 Jan Syngap1 Gene Mutation Linked To Intellectual Disability, Schizophrenia and Autism
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Gavin Rumbaug
Professor (Associate)
The Scripps Research Institute
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: We have developed a genetic approach that protects animal models against a type of genetic disruption that causes intellectual disability, including serious memory impairments and altered anxiety levels. The findings focus on treating the effects of mutations to a gene known as Syngap1. In our new study, we examined the effect of damaging Syngap1 mutations during development and found that the mutations disrupt a critical period of neuronal growth—a period between the first and third postnatal weeks in mouse models. We found that a certain type of cortical neuron grows too quickly in early development, which then leads to the premature formation of certain types of neural circuits. These findings help explain why genetic treatments in adult mice are not very effective.
25 Jan Opioids Commonly Taken By Women of Childbearing Age
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Jennifer Lind PharmD, MPH
Division of Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, CDC
Medical Research: What is the background for this study?
Dr. Lind: CDC researchers published a new study estimating the proportion of women aged 15-44 years who filled a prescription for opioid pain medications. Opioids are prescribed by healthcare providers to treat moderate to severe pain. They are also found in some prescription cough medications. Opioids include medications like codeine, oxycodone, hydrocodone, or morphine. For this study, researchers used data from two large insurance claims datasets—one on Medicaid and one on private insurance—and looked at data from 2008-2012.
Medical Research: What are the main findings?
Dr. Lind: Opioid medications are widely used among women of reproductive age in the United States, regardless of insurance type. On average, more than a third (39 percent) of women aged 15-44 years enrolled in Medicaid, and more than one fourth (28 percent) of those with private insurance filled a prescription for an opioid pain medication each year during 2008-2012. Taking these medications early in pregnancy, often before women know they are pregnant, can increase the risk for some birth defects (such as spina bifida) and other poor pregnancy outcomes (such as preterm birth or low birth weight).
21 Jan Mental Health Services Linked To Lower Suicide Rate in Large HMO
Posted at 17:03h
in Author Interviews, Baylor College of Medicine Houston, JAMA, Mental Health Research
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
M. Justin Coffey MD
Associate Professor
Menninger Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences
Baylor College of Medicine
MedicalResearch: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Coffey: Although both the US Surgeon General and the Institute of Medicine have called on health care systems to reduce suicide, the few assessments of suicide in such systems have examined only specific patient groups and not the entire population of health plan members. Our study reports the first information on suicide for the entire membership of a large health maintenance organization (HMO). The findings provide a previously unavailable baseline data for health care systems who are engaged in important efforts to measure and prevent suicide.
We identified all suicides among the entire membership of our HMO network between 1999 and 2010, determining the date and cause of death using official state mortality records. In our sample, the annual suicide rate among all HMO members (including non-patient members) did not change over time, whereas the annual suicide rate in the general population of the state of Michigan increased significantly. Importantly, suicides actually decreased among HMO members who received specialty mental health services, whereas suicides increased among HMO members who accessed general medical services but not specialty mental health services.
16 Jan Medicaid to Medicare Transition Challenging For Mental Health Patients
Posted at 19:02h
in Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Cost of Health Care, JAMA, Medicare, Mental Health Research, Pharmacology
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Jeanne Madden PhD
Instructor, Department of Population Medicine
Harvard Medical School
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Madden: When Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage started in 2006, many experts voiced concerns about disabled patients with serious mental illness making the transition from state Medicaid coverage to Medicare. Our study is one of the first to examine the impact of the transition in mentally ill populations. People living with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are at high risk of relapse and hospitalization and are especially vulnerable to disruptions in access to their treatments.
We found that the effects of transitioning from Medicaid to Medicare Part D depended on where patients lived. Transition to Part D in states that put limits on Medicaid drug coverage resulted in fewer patients going without treatment.
By contrast, in states with more generous drug coverage, we saw reductions in use, of antipsychotics in particular, after patients shifted to Medicare Part D. This may have been due to new cost controls used within many private Medicare drug plans. Given that most states in the US are in this latter category, with the relatively generous Medicaid drug coverage, we also found reductions in antipsychotic use nation-wide.
Although a very large group of people made that transition from Medicaid to Medicare in 2006, thousands more still transition every year because when disabled people qualify for Medicare, they must wait 2 years for their benefits kick in. Also, many other disabled patients are on Medicaid only and don’t qualify for Medicare. They are of course affected by restrictions on Medicaid coverage, which vary from state to state.
06 Jan Study Highlights Need To Minimize Familial Suicide Tendency
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Brent David MD
Academic Chief, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic Professor of Psychiatry, Pediatrics & Epidemiology
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Medical Research: What is the background for this study?
Dr. David: There are now many studies that show that suicide and suicidal behavior run in families. A family history of suicide increases the risk for suicide attempt and vice versa, so that we believe that the trait that is being passed from parent to child is a tendency to act on suicidal thoughts, resulting in either an attempt or an actual suicide. However, what was not not known was the mechanism by which parents transmitted the risk of suicidal behavior to their children, and what the precursors of suicidal behavior looked like in individuals who were at risk for suicidal behavior, but had not yet engaged in a suicide attempt. Therefore, we conducted a high-risk family study, in which studied the children of parents with mood disorders, about half of whom also had a history of a suicide attempt.
Medical Research: What are the main findings?
Dr. David: We followed 701 offspring for an average of 5.6 years, and found that those offspring whose parents had made a suicide attempt were almost 5 times more likely to make a suicide attempt themselves, even after accounting for mood disorder in parent and child and past suicidal behavior in the offspring. We found three main pathways by which suicidal behavior was passed from parent to child:
- Parental mood disorder was transmitted to children, and that was a precursor of a suicide attempt.
- Parent attempt was related to offspring impulsive aggression, which in turn increased the risk for mood disorder, which then increased the likelihood of a suicide attempt. (We define impulsive aggression as a tendency to response with hostility or aggression to provocation or frustration.
- Finally, there is a direct path from parent attempt to child attempt, with no precursors or intervening variables.
- First, these findings highlight that a parental history of a suicide attempt increases the risk of an attempt in the parent's children. Clinicians who take care of adults who have attempted suicide should make sure that children are assessed as they are at increased risk and that parents know what to look for in the future in order to get their children into needed treatment.
- Second, the transmission of suicidal behavior from parent to child can be attenuated by preventing the transmission of mood disorder, and of impulsive aggression. There are now evidence based interventions that reduce the likelihood of a child of a depressed parent from developing depression; these treatment involve cognitive behavioral principles and may also involve family interventions. There are now good family-based interventions for impulsive aggression that can attenuate the risk that the child or adolescent will go on to develop a mood disorder, which in turn greatly increases the risk for suicidal behavior.
20 Dec Breast Asymmetry Negatively Impacts Adolescent Psychological Health
Posted at 15:57h
in Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Psychological Science, Surgical Research
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Brian I. Labow, MD
Director, Adolescent Breast Clinic
Assistant in Surgery Assistant Professor of Surgery
Harvard Medical School Primary
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Labow: This study is part of our larger Adolescent Breast Disorder Study, in which we examine the impact of several breast disorders on adolescent girls and boys and measure the effect of treatment. In this present study we have found breast asymmetry, defined as having at least 1 cup size difference between breasts, can have a significant impact on the psychological wellbeing of adolescent girls. Validated surveys were given to adolescent girls with breast asymmetry, macromastia (enlarged breasts), and healthy unaffected girls between the ages of 12-21 to assess a wide array of health domains. Girls with breast asymmetry had noted deficits in psychological wellbeing and self-esteem when compared to healthy girls of the same age. These impairments were similar to those of girls with macromastia, a condition known to have significant negative mental health effects. Interestingly, these negative psychological outcomes did not vary by patient’s age or severity of breast asymmetry. Older and younger adolescents were negatively impacted similarly, as were those with lesser and greater degrees of breast asymmetry.
28 Nov Dramatic Increase in Subthreshold Psychiatric Diagnoses In Young People
Medicalresearch.com with:
Daniel Safer MD
Department of Psychiatry
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Baltimore, Maryland
Medical Research: What is the nature of this study?
Dr. Safer: A large national sample of annual physician office-based visits by youth (aged 2-19) covering 12 years (1999-2010), focusing on trends in psychiatric DSM-IV diagnoses, with psychiatric diagnostic data analyzed proportionally comparing diagnoses that were subthreshold (not otherwise specified) with those that met full diagnostic criteria.
03 Nov Family Support Mitigates Negative Impact of Cyberbullying
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Frank J. Elgar, PhD
Associate Professor of Psychiatry
Canada Research Chair in Social Inequalities in Child Health
Institute for Health and Social Policy, McGill University
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Elgar: Our study addressed two questions. The first was whether cyberbullying has unique links to adolescent mental health, or is an extension of traditional (face-to-face) bullying. We measured various forms of bullying and found that cyberbullying does indeed have a unique impact on mental health.
Our second question about protective factors in the home environment. We examined the frequency of family dinners as potential a moderating factor - understanding, of course, that dinners are a proxy of various family characteristics that benefit adolescents, such as communication, support, and parental monitoring. We found that teens who were targeted by cyberbullying but had ate dinner with their families more often had significantly better mental health outcomes as a result.
23 Oct Analgesics May Enhance Depression Treatment
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Karl Ole Köhler, Research assistant
Department of Clinical Medicine
The Department of General Psychiatry
Aarhus University
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Response: We found that anti-inflammatory drugs and ordinary analgesics, which mainly are used against physical disorders, may have treatment effects against depression when used in combination with antidepressants. Thereby, our results furthermore support the hypothesis regarding a comorbidity between inflammatory diseases and depression, i.e. a connection between somatic and mental disorders.
21 Oct Bipolar Disorder: Protective Genetic Discovery May Lead To New Drug Treatment
MedicalResearch.com: Interview with:
Edward I. Ginns, MD, PhD, Director
Program in Medical Genetics and
Lysosomal Disorders Treatment and Research Program
University of Massachusetts Medical School
Reed Rose Gordon Building, Room 137
Shrewsbury, MA 01545
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Ginns: Our study identified that sonic hedgehog signaling, an important brain pathway, is involved in bipolar affective disorder.
This finding shows a mechanism and provides new targets for drug development. It suggests that sonic hedgehog signaling can be modulated to help manage bipolar symptoms in adults by using drugs already being studied in clinical trials for other medical conditions.
The new findings were uncovered by decades of translational research in the Old Order Amish families of Pennsylvania, where in a few special families in the Amish Study there is a high incidence of both bipolar disorder and a rare genetic dwarfism, Ellis van‐Creveld (EvC) syndrome. No person with EvC had bipolar disorder despite forty years of documented research across multiple generations, suggesting that the genetic cause of this rare dwarfism was protective of bipolar affective disorder.
09 Oct Cardiometabolic Risks Begin Early in Schizophrenic Spectrum Disorders
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Christoph U. Correll, MD
Professor of Psychiatry and Molecular Medicine
Hofstra North Shore LIJ School of Medicine
Medical Director, Recognition and Prevention (RAP) Program
The Zucker Hillside Hospital Investigator
Feinstein Institute for Medical Research
North Shore Long Island Jewish Health System
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Correll: The main findings of the study of 398 patients with first-episode schizophrenia-spectrum disorders who were on average in their mid twenties are that:
- 1) despite their young age, an average of only 47 days lifetime antipsychotic exposure and overweight/obesity figures that were comparable to similarly aged US population members, there was a clear pattern of increased smoking and several metabolic risk parameters compared to similarly aged persons in the general US population;
- 2) dyslipidemia, a constellation of at least one relevant abnormal blood fat value, was as frequent as in a 15-20 years older general US population;
- 3) body composition related risk markers were significantly associated with longer total psychiatric illness duration, whereas metabolic risk markers were significantly associated with the overall very short mean lifetime antipsychotic treatment duration; and
- 4) relevant for treatment choice and recommendations for patients, significantly higher continuous metabolic risk factor values were associated with olanzapine treatment and, less so, with quetiapine treatment.
11 Sep Stigma Hampers Patients From Seeking Mental Health Care
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Patrick Corrigan Psy.D.
Distinguished Professor of Psychology
Illinois Institute of Technology
PI: National Consortium on Stigma and Empowerment
www.NCSE1.org
Medical Research: What are the main findings of this review?
Dr. Corrigan: People with serious mental illness often do not seek out services, or drop out early, when in need. Stigma is a major reason for why this happens. Stigma refers to the stereotypes about a group that undermine status and lead to discrimination. Discrimination refers to the behaviors that block the opportunities of group members. Some employers do not hire people with mental illness, some landlords do not rent to them, and some primary care practitioners offer a substandard of care. Stereotypes and discrimination undermine engagement in mental health services in three ways (Corrigan, 2005):
Label Avoidance: In order to escape the pernicious effects of stigma, people avoid settings where they are labeled mentally ill; for example, people coming out of a psychiatrist’s office may be perceived as “nuts.”
Self-Stigma: Some people who internalize stereotypes suffer diminished self-esteem and self-efficacy leading to the “why try” effect. “Why should I try to get a job? Someone like me is not worthy.” “Why should I try to get mental health treatment? I am not able to benefit from it.”
Structural Stigma: Stereotypes and discrimination become institutionalized in the laws and practices of government and business. For example, insurance coverage for mental health services was significantly below that for most other conditions.
07 Sep Poor Access To SSRIs May Result In Suicide Inequalities
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Sean Clouston Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Core Faculty, Program in Public Health
Department of Preventive Medicine
Stony Brook University Health Sciences Center
Stony Brook, NY 11794
Medical Research: What is the background for this study:
Dr. Clouston: A number of epidemiological studies have found that suicide rates have decreased rapidly with the widespread distribution of SSRI antidepressants. Our group has found that proliferation of preventive medicine has, with regard to other causes of death, tended to occur unequally. We hypothesized that if SSRI antidepressants prevent suicide by treating depression, then suicide might also be susceptible to such inequality. Our study used mortality data to show that decreases in suicide were concentrated in regions with higher socioeconomic status.
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Clouston We used the best available data from the US and found that socioeconomic inequalities have increased dramatically in conjunction with the proliferation of SSRI antidepressants.
06 Sep Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Increases Risk Of Schizophrenia
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Sandra M. Meier, PhD The Lundbeck Foundation Initiative for Integrative Psychiatric Research, iPSYCH, National Centre for Register-Based Research Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Meier: People with an obsessive-compulsive disorder are at a 6 to 7 times higher risk of developing schizophrenia than people without an obsessive-compulsive disorder. If the parents are diagnosed with an obsessive-compulsive disorder, their offspring experience a 3 to 4 times higher chance to develop schizophrenia.27 Aug Children of Bipolar Parents Have Increased Novelty-Seeking and Impulsivity
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Manpreet K. Singh, MD MS Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang Faculty Scholar in Pediatric Translational Medicine Stanford University School of Medicine Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Singh: Our research team used a monetary incentive delay paradigm to measure fronto-limbic activity and connectivity associated with anticipation and receipt of reward and loss in healthy offspring of parents with bipolar I disorder. We found that compared to youth offspring without any family history of psychopathology, high-risk offspring had aberrant prefrontal and cingulate activations and connectivity during reward processing. Further, greater striatal, amygdalar, and insula activations while anticipating and receiving rewards and losses were associated with greater novelty-seeking and impulsivity traits in high-risk youth.12 Jul Psychiatric Medications Linked To High Number of ER Visits
MedicalResearch.com interview with: Lee M. Hampton, MD, MSc: Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Atlanta, Georgia Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Hampton: The study, which used CDC's national outpatient adverse drug event surveillance system (NEISS-CADES), found that there are almost 90,000 estimated annual emergency department visits by adults for adverse drug events from therapeutic use of antipsychotics, antidepressants, sedatives and anxiolytics, lithium salts or stimulants between 2009 and 2011. Almost one in five of those emergency department visits (19.3%) resulted in hospitalization. Sedatives and anxiolytics, antidepressants, and antipsychotics each caused 20,000 to 30,000 emergency department visits annually. However, relative to how often each of these types of medications was prescribed at outpatient visits, antipsychotics and lithium salts were more likely to cause emergency department visits for adverse drug events than were sedatives, stimulants, and antidepressants. Antipsychotics caused 3.3 times more emergency department visits for adverse drug events than sedatives, 4.0 times more emergency department visits than stimulants, and 4.9 times more emergency department visits than antidepressants relative to their outpatient use. Out of the 83 specific drugs the study looked at, ten drugs were implicated in nearly 60% of the emergency department visits for ADEs from therapeutic use of antipsychotics, antidepressants, sedatives and anxiolytics, lithium salts or stimulants. Zolpidem was implicated in nearly 12% of all such emergency department visits and 21% of such emergency department visits involving adults aged 65 years or older, more than any other antipsychotic, antidepressant, sedative or anxiolytic, lithium salt or stimulant.07 Jul Brain Imaging Of Psychedelic State Shows Resemblance To REM Sleep
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Enzo Tagliazucchi: Goethe University, Germany MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Tagliazucchi: The main finding of the study is the objective discovery of an "expanded mind" and a more "unpredictable mind" after the ingestion of a psychedelic (in this case psilocybin, a compound found in...
01 Jul Women May Be More Comfortable Seeking Mental Health Support Than Men
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Flora I Matheson PhD
Centre for Research on Inner City Health
St. Michael's Hospital
Toronto, ON, Canada
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Matheson:
- We found that women were 10 per cent more likely to use mental health services than men.
- And that within any 3-year period, women with physical illness used medical services for mental health treatment 6 months earlier than men.
17 Jun Genetic Structures Underlying Depression and Anxiety During Development
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Monika Waszczuk
1+3 PhD Student
MRC SGDP Research Centre
Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London
DeCrespigny Park London UK
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Answer: Little is known about the genetic influences on the relationship between depression and anxiety disorders across development. We used two population-based prospective longitudinal twin and sibling studies to investigate phenotypic associations between the symptoms of these disorders, and tested genetic structures underlying these symptoms across three developmental stages: childhood, adolescence and early adulthood.
We found that depression and anxiety disorder symptoms are largely distinct in childhood and are influenced by largely independent genetic factors. Depression and anxiety symptoms become more associated and shared most of their genetic etiology from adolescence. An overarching internalizing genetic factor influencing depression and all anxiety subscales emerged in early adulthood. These results provide preliminary evidence for different phenotypic and genetic structures of internalizing disorder symptoms in childhood, adolescence and young adulthood, with depression and anxiety becoming more associated from adolescence.