MedPage Today (5/5, Henderson ) reports a systematic review and meta-analysis found that “parental use of technology was negatively associated with cognitive and psychosocial outcomes as well as screen time in kids younger than age 5.” In the 21-study analysis, “there were significant associations between parents’ technology use while in their child’s presence and several of these outcomes.”

Researchers stated that technological devices can help parents “navigate the complexities of modern life,” but “when parent-child interactions are disrupted by their devices, it may foster a sense of being ignored or lead children to feel they must compete for their parent’s attention.” They added, “Such intrusions may disrupt the natural flow of interactions, which is particularly important as young children are acquiring critical social and language skills (and in parallel, motor, psychosocial, and cognitive skills) and establishing their movement behavior patterns (e.g., physical activity, sedentary screen time, and sleep).” The review was published in JAMA Pediatrics.

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

Psychiatric News (5/5) reports a study found that while “youth with mental illness spend significantly more time on social media than those without,” only youth “with internalizing conditions such as depression or anxiety disorders were more likely to feel a lack of control about their social media use or engage in other unhealthy online behaviors.” Researchers observed that “youth who had a mental illness spent significantly more time on social media weekly than those without (average 2.8 hours versus 1.9 hours, respectively) and were also less satisfied on average with their number of online friends.” Furthermore, youth with an internalizing condition “spent more time online (around three hours weekly) and were less happy about their online friend count.” They also “engaged more frequently in online social comparisons, were more likely to say that social media feedback (e.g., number of likes) impacted their mood, and were more likely to feel lack of control about their time spent online.” The study was published in Nature Human Behavior.

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— “Youth With Internalizing Conditions Spend More Time on Social Media, Feel Lack of Control Online,” Psychiatric News, May 5, 2025

American Journal of Managed Care (5/5, McCormick) reports a study found that “outpatient telepsychiatry care was associated with lower inpatient hospitalization rates and fewer emergency department admissions while maintaining comparable costs to Medicaid.” Researchers “conducted a cross-sectional analysis using 2022 Medicaid data to examine the costs and outcomes associated with timely outpatient telepsychiatry care delivered by Frontier Psychiatry in Billings, Montana, one of the largest psychiatric care organizations in the Intermountain West.” They found “lower hospitalization rates and emergency admissions for telepsychiatry patients, but similar readmission rates compared to controls.” Researchers concluded, “It is our hope that the findings we report here spur increased investment in, and access to, pragmatic and timely outpatient psychiatric treatment for some of our nation’s most vulnerable patients.” The study was published in JAMA Network Open.

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— “Telepsychiatry Services Cut Hospitalization Rates Without Raising Overall Costs,” , American Journal of Managed Care, May 5, 2025

HealthDay (4/30, Thompson ) reports a study found that suicide risk is tripled later in life “among men and women who experienced sexual trauma while serving” in the military. Researchers analyzed “Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical records for more than 5 million veterans, looking for links between sexual trauma and suicide.” They found that “nearly 16% of female veterans and just over 1% of male veterans had experienced sexual trauma while serving. Nearly 9% of women who’d experienced military sexual trauma later attempted suicide, compared with about 3% of women who hadn’t been assaulted, results show.” Nearly 19% of male sexual trauma victims attempted suicide compared to about 6% of men who had not been abused, researchers noted. The study was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

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— “Sexual Assault Triples Suicide Risk Among Veterans,” Dennis Thompson, HealthDay, April 30, 2025

The New York Times (4/30, Caron ) reports that survey data, collected by Gallup primarily in 2023, show that “young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 were struggling – not only with happiness, but also with their physical and mental health, their perceptions of their own character, finding meaning in life, the quality of their relationships and their financial security.” Study participants across the globe “had relatively low measures of flourishing on average until age 50,” but the “the difference between the younger and older adults was largest in the United States, the researchers said.” The study was “one of a collection of papers published on Wednesday in the journal Nature Mental Health.”

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MedPage Today (4/28, George ) reports, “Alzheimer’s disease pathology was common in people diagnosed with other dementias, a large cross-sectional study in Sweden showed.” Investigators found that “while most patients clinically diagnosed with Alzheimer’s had evidence of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) amyloid and tau pathology, those biomarkers also emerged in people with other dementias.”

Among “nearly 14,000 adults, a clear, Alzheimer’s-like profile based on three CSF biomarkers – amyloid-beta 1-42, total tau (t-tau), and phosphorylated tau 181 (p-tau181) measurements – was seen in 68% of people with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, 65% of late-onset Alzheimer’s, and 52% of people with mixed Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia.” Meanwhile, “among people without an Alzheimer’s diagnosis, the Alzheimer’s profile emerged in 25% of people with unspecified dementia, 9% of people with Parkinson’s disease dementia, and 8% of people with frontotemporal dementia.”

The findings were published in JAMA Neurology.

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

Psychiatric News (4/28) reports, “Antidepressants effectively treat depression in patients who have a history of heart attacks without adversely impacting their long-term prognosis, according to a study issued in BMC Psychiatry.” Additionally, antidepressents “were linked to a decreased risk of heart attack recurrence.” Further, while baseline depression scores did not differ between control and treatment groups, “antidepressant treatment significantly reduced depression scores at long-term follow-up.”

Antidepressants “did not increase the risk of adverse cardiac events, all-cause mortality, or rehospitalization for heart disease.” Researcher Hongquan Wan and colleague wrote, “Meta-analyses indicate that post–[heart attack] depression is associated with a 1.6- to 2.7-fold increased risk of mortality and cardiovascular events during long-term follow-up, highlighting the critical need for effective interventions.”

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— “Antidepressants Effective, Safe for Patients After Heart Attacks,” Psychiatric News, April 28, 2025

Healio (4/25) reported that approximately 33% of adults with past-year medical debt “had forgone mental health care.” According to a research letter published in JAMA Health Forum, adults with previous medical debt “were more likely to forgo mental health care due to cost.” Kyle J. Moon, BS, PhD student trainee in the Center for Mental Health and Addiction Policy at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told Healio that “given the high prevalence of medical debt (roughly one in seven people), this should raise concern about how medical debt may contribute to, or even exacerbate, the mental health treatment gap.” Further, “with less than half of adults receiving care for any mental disorder, prior research suggests that medical debt may exacerbate this gap by eroding patient trust in the system or raising the threshold for care, Moon and colleagues wrote.”

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— “US adults with medical debt more likely to forgo mental health care,” Moira Mahoney, Healio, April 25, 2025

The New York Times (4/25, Hoffman ) reported that the Trump Administration’s budget proposal “plans to terminate a $56 million annual grant program that distributes” Narcan doses “and trains emergency responders in communities across the country to administer them.” The Times explains, “Narcan saves hundreds of thousands of lives a year and is routinely praised by public health experts for contributing to the continuing drop in opioid-related deaths.” However, documents show the proposal will include the grant “among many addiction prevention and treatment programs to be zeroed out.”

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— “The New York Times (requires login and subscription)

Psychiatric News (4/25) reported a new study in Alzheimer’s & Dementia finds that too much sleep per night may effect cognitive function – particularly for adults with depression. Overall, “compared with participants with average sleep, those with long sleep had poorer performance in global cognition, executive function, visuospatial memory, and verbal learning/memory tasks.” Researchers wrote, “These findings suggest that sleeping ≥ 9 hours per night is associated with cognitive differences equivalent to 6.5 years of brain aging.” Further, “the strongest negative associations between long sleep and cognition were among individuals with depressive symptoms, regardless of antidepressant usage.

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— “Long Sleep Duration Linked to Poorer Cognitive Performance,” Psychiatric News, April 25, 2025