HealthDay (12/16, Preidt) reports, “U.S. teens and young adults are as likely as older people to overdose on prescription opioid” analgesics and “have the same risk factors, researchers” concluded after analyzing “data on 2.8 million privately insured patients from 12 to 21 years of age who received opioid prescriptions between 2009 and 2017.” The findings were published online in JAMA Pediatrics.

Related Links:

— “Teen Opioid Users Face Same OD Risks as Adults, “Robert Preidt, HealthDay, December 16, 2019

Medscape (12/16, Lowry, Subscription Publication) reports, “The powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl is ubiquitous and laced into so many substances of abuse that many patients may not even realize they have been exposed to this key driver of opioid overdose deaths in the US,” research indicated. The “study of more than 700 visits to a psychiatric ED which services US veterans revealed 14% tested positive for fentanyl,” but in these visits, “21% of patients reported no opioid exposure.” These findings “suggest fentanyl screening should become routine in all psychiatric emergency departments (EDs).” The study was recently presented at the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry (AAAP) 30th Annual Meeting.

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

WGBH-FM Boston (12/15, McKim) reports on “the responsibilities and challenges of public schools to respond to the increasing mental health needs of students,” particularly since “suicide is the second-leading cause of death for teenagers.” Currently, “most health specialists agree that school personnel, in contact with students for a large part of the day, can be a key resource in providing help” to seriously troubled adolescents. But, while “the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention recommends that states require that all public school personnel receive at least two hours of suicide awareness and prevention training each year,” the “foundation says only 13 states require such annual training.”

Related Links:

— “Massachusetts Case Probes The Role Schools Play In Teen Suicide Prevention, “Jenifer Mckim, NPR, December 15, 2019

Psychiatric News (12/13) reported, “It takes an average of seven years for people who have some, but not all, symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (subthreshold OCD) to develop full-blown OCD,” researchers concluded. The study also revealed that “certain characteristics, such as male sex, the presence of other psychiatric conditions, and romantic status, may be associated with a faster transition from subthreshold OCD to OCD.” The findings of the 954-patient study were published online Dec. 10 in the Journal of Affective Disorders.

Related Links:

— “Male Sex, Comorbid Psychiatric Conditions, Romantic Status Linked to Faster Progression to OCD, Psychiatric News, December 13, 2019

Healio (12/13, Gramigna) reported, “An updated version of an established model for major depressive disorder [MDD] offers a ‘useful foundation’ toward a comprehensive developmental model of prescription opioid use disorder,” researchers concluded after drawing “data from the 2012 to 2013 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions-III and divided risk factors into four developmental tiers – childhood/early adolescence, late adolescence, adulthood and past-year,” then using “hierarchical logistic regression models to assess each risk factor’s independent contribution and built separate models to predict 12-month nonmedical prescription opioid use and risk for prescription opioid use disorder among individuals with 12-month nonmedical use.” The findings were published online Dec. 3 in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Updated depressive model targets patients with prescription opioid use disorder, “Joe Gramigna, Healio, December 13, 2019