People treated at psychiatric hospitals are at highest risk of committing suicide immediately after their discharge if they suffer from depression, a new study reports. Patients hospitalized for depression are hundreds of times more likely to commit suicide within the first three days of discharge, compared to the suicide rate of the general population, results show. “Although we found a decreasing trend over time, the high-risk post-discharge period still requires intensified attention,” wrote the authors, who were led by Dr. Kari Aaltonen of the University of Helsinki in Finland. “Continuity of care and access to enhanced psychiatric outpatient care within days of discharge should be imperative.” More than half of all people who die by suicide are depressed, and about 40% had been recently hospitalized for psychiatric reasons, researchers said in an American Psychiatric Association news release. For the study, researchers analyzed health data on more than 91,000 Finnish people hospitalized for depression between 1996 and 2017. Each person was tracked for up to two years following their discharge. A total of 1,219 men and 757 women died by suicide during the study period, results show. Researchers found that within the first three days of discharge, the suicide rate was 6,063 per 100,000 person-years. Person-years take into account both the number of people in a study and the amount of time each person spends in…  read on >  read on >

Anorexia isn’t solely a disease that strikes women and girls, Canadian experts say, so they want to raise awareness that the illness can also be serious for boys and men. “Early identification and prompt treatment are essential,” wrote a team led by Dr. Basil Kadoura. He’s a specialist in adolescent health at British Columbia Children’s Hospital and University of British Columbia, in Vancouver. They published their article Feb. 20 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. About 0.3% of males will receive a diagnosis of anorexia nervosa, with some types of boys and men at higher risk. These include gay, bisexual, trans, and queer people, Kadoura’s group said, as well as guys “involved in body- and strength-focused sports like cycling, running and wrestling.” Because of the ignorance and stigma surrounding eating disorders in men, too many who have anorexia are diagnosed very late, the experts added. There are questions that might point to anorexia in males: “Screening for muscle-enhancing goals and behaviors is important to assess for anorexia nervosa,” the team said in a journal news release. Other warning signs include diet changes, vomiting, over-exercising and supplement and anabolic steroid use. If anorexia progresses without diagnosis and treatment, the effects can be serious. They include unstable vital signs, slower than normal heart rate, electrolyte abnormalities and other conditions, the Canadian group said. For adolescents of either…  read on >  read on >

Immigration has become a contentious topic in America, but new research shows the heated debate on the issue may be stressing out Hispanics across the country, whether they are citizens or not. After analyzing data from 2011-2018, the researchers discovered that, over time, there has an increase in psychological distress among all Hispanics as U.S. immigration policies came under fire. For example, when President Barack Obama signed the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) into law, that relieved distress for many naturalized citizens. But the Trump presidency had the opposite effect, triggering anxiety and depressive symptoms among Hispanic noncitizens, the researchers said. But apart from federal policies on immigration, even the continuing public debate on the issue has taken a toll. “How people are talking about immigration and how salient immigration and deportation are to day-to-day life is potentially equally as important to distress as these more dramatic changes and events, like the Trump election or DACA,” said study co-author Amy Johnson, an assistant professor of sociology and anthropology at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. And those fears were felt whether a Hispanic person faced possible deportation or not: Using Google Trends, the researchers show that U.S.-born Hispanics experienced higher distress in periods where there were spikes in Google searches on topics related to deportation and immigration. The findings were published Feb. 19 in the Proceeding…  read on >  read on >

Increased access to prescription opioids has driven up U.S. suicide rates by making it easier to women to end their lives, a new study claims. The study also blames a shrinking federal safety net during tough economic times for rising suicide rates. “We contend that the U.S. federal government’s weak regulatory oversight of the pharmaceutical industry and tattered social safety nets have significantly shaped U.S. suicide risk,” said lead researcher Daniel Simon, a doctoral candidate in sociology and a research affiliate with the University of Colorado-Boulder’s Institute of Behavioral Science. U.S. suicide rates had been steadily declining until the late 1990s, when the numbers started ticking up, researchers said. They’ve risen steadily ever since. Analyzing nearly 600,000 suicide deaths in the United States between 1990 and 2017, researchers noted two spikes in the data that occurred in 1997 and 2007. Women’s suicide rates by poisoning – the leading method among females – had been declining about 3% a year during the late 1980s and early 1990s, researchers said. But in 1997, one year after approval of the long-acting opioid Oxycontin, women’s suicide rates by poisoning began increasing by about 2% a year. “In the late 1990s, the method women often consider using to attempt to end their life suddenly became much more potent and much more available,” Simon said in a university news release. Notably,…  read on >  read on >

A study of mental health care in Maryland finds an increasing number of children and teens covered by Medicaid are taking multiple psychiatric meds. This trend towards “polypharmacy” might be happening elsewhere, prior research suggests. In the new study, Maryland kids ages 17 or younger experienced “a 4% increased odds of psychotropic polypharmacy per year from 2015 to 2020,” reported a team led by Yueh-Yi Chiang. She’s a graduate student at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. Chiang’s group tracked prescription data for nearly 127,000 Medicaid enrollees under the age of 18 between 2015 and 2020. Those receiving multiple psychiatric drugs during that time rose from 4.2% in 2015 to 4.6% five years later. “Individuals who were disabled or in foster care were significantly more likely than individuals with low income to receive three or more psychotropic classes overlapping for 90 days or more,” Chiang’s group noted. Polypharmacy among kids in foster care rose from 10.8% in 2015 to 11.3% in 2020, the study found. The reasons behind the steady increase in polypharmacy aren’t clear, although “factors such as complex medical conditions, early-life trauma and fragmented care may have contributed to these findings,” the team said. Chiang’s group believes the findings “emphasize the importance of monitoring the use of psychotropic combinations, particularly among vulnerable populations, such as youths enrolled in Medicaid who have a…  read on >  read on >

Nearly 15% of Americans still deny that climate change is real, according to a new national assessment from the University of Michigan. Evidence of climate change has been mounting, including science which has shown that climate-related natural disasters are growing in frequency and intensity sooner than originally predicted, researchers said. Nevertheless, climate change is still not wholly accepted as fact in the United States. To assess climate change denialism in America, researchers analyzed Twitter (now X) data from 2017 to 2019, using AI techniques to track how social media has spread such denial. The study also identified key influencers like former President Donald Trump, and assessed how they spread and cemented misinformation about climate change. Using ChatGPT AI, researchers classified more than 7.4 million tweets as “for” or “against” climate change, and mapped the results at state and county levels. “Prior to the advancement of AI and social media data, this work relied on expensive and time-consuming surveys,” said senior study author Joshua Newell, co-director of the Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability. Analysis of the tweets showed that belief in climate change is highest along the West Coast and East Coast, and that denialism is highest in the central and southern parts of the United States. In fact, more than 20% of the populations of Oklahoma,…  read on >  read on >

FRIDAY, Feb. 16, 2024 (HealthDay News) —When grandparents can lend a hand with little ones, moms are less likely to battle depression. And, in turn, they are less likely to take antidepressants, Finnish researchers report in the Feb. 15 issue of the journal Population Studies. Based on a study that tracked 488,000 mothers of young children in Finland, use of antidepressants was highest in moms whose parents and in-laws lived far away or were old and ailing. “Previous studies have consistently shown that younger grandparents in good health are more likely to provide support and childcare,” said study co-author Niina Metsä-Simola, a researcher at the University of Helsinki.  “Having an old and frail grandparent may even place an additional burden on mothers as they cannot expect to receive support from such grandparents, but instead need to continue providing support upwards,” she added in a news release from the journal’s publisher. The depression effect was strongest in women who separated from their partners during the 2000-2014 study period.  Metsä-Simola said that made sense, because these women often have custody of their child and may need relatives’ help.  “Mothers in such a situation may need to take on additional work, affecting their need for childcare, and may even need to move home,” she said, adding that parents of young children, especially those entering single parenthood, may be…  read on >  read on >