Expecting or new mothers are much more likely these days to be diagnosed with anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, new research shows. However, more women are also getting treated for these problems rather than roughing it out, researchers report in April 1 issue of the journal Health Affairs. “Taken together, these studies show a lot of movement in maternal mental health,” said researcher Stephanie Hall, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan Medical School. “The landscape is different, at least as far as our health care system’s ability to pick up on conditions and help people get treatment for them.” For the research, investigators analyzed claims data for people with private insurance between 2008 and 2020. They specifically looked for depressive and anxiety disorders occurring during pregnancy or in the first year of motherhood. By 2020, more than one in four (28%) women received a diagnosis of a mood disorder during either pregnancy or the first year of parenthood – a rate nearly double that seen in 2008. Further, the rate of PTSD diagnosis among expecting or new moms quadrupled, rising to nearly 2% of all those pregnant or postpartum in 2020. Fortunately, treatment also appeared to increase alongside diagnoses, researchers said. The rate at which new or expecting moms received talk therapy more than doubled, rising 16% for women diagnosed with anxiety,…  read on >  read on >

A monthly long-acting injection of buprenorphine can be an easier and more effective therapy for people struggling with opioid addiction, but treatment centers aren’t much interested in using it, a new study discovers. Only one-third of treatment facilities (33%) offer long-acting buprenorphine injections to patients, according to findings published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Researchers suspect this is because substance use treatment centers face administrative obstacles that make it more difficult to offer buprenorphine injections, compared to the daily pill form of the drug. “This paper highlights gaps that exist in the system,” said lead researcher Nitin Vidyasagar, a second-year student at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. “We can now use the information to help treat people who need it the most.” Buprenorphine works by activating the same brain receptors that more powerful opioids target. However, the effects are weaker, helping addicts wean themselves off other substances like heroin and fentanyl. Analyzing federal data on substance use, researchers found that primary care doctors are more likely to offer long-acting buprenorphine shots than treatment centers. This might be because doctor’s offices face fewer regulatory and administrative hurdles to prescribe the medication as a monthly injection, the researchers said. “The takeaway is, we still have a lot of work to do to make the full complement of opioid treatment options…  read on >  read on >

Telehealth might be a more effective way of treating alcoholism than in-person therapy sessions, a new study reports. Alcoholics who receive treatment through telehealth were more likely to engage in more therapy visits and stick to anti-alcohol medication longer than those who venture out for alcohol use disorder therapy, researchers found. These results are “particularly important in the current context, as the United States debates whether to sustain or revoke pandemic-era policies that decreased barriers to telehealth,” concluded the research team led by Dr. Ponni Perumalswami, of the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System. For the study, researchers analyzed data from the Veterans Administration gathered during the pandemic, from March 2020 to February 2021, on more than 138,000 patients diagnosed with alcohol use disorder. During the study period, 53% of patients had at least one video visit, 38% had at least one telephone visit but no video visits, and 9% had only in-person visits, researchers said. Telehealth was associated with more therapy visits and medication use compared with in-person visits, researchers found. What’s more, among those who received treatment through telehealth, video visits prompted significantly more therapy sessions than telephone visits. Black patients were less likely to receive video telehealth treatment and were more likely to have in-person visits, highlighting “important disparities in alcohol use disorder telehealth use,” researchers said. The new study was published recently…  read on >  read on >