Kaiser Health News (3/21, Leys) reports on the increasing frequency of “video visits” as “an increasingly common way for residents of small-town nursing homes to receive mental healthcare.” Even though the “use of some other telehealth services may dwindle as the Covid-19 pandemic winds down,” clinicians “predict demand for remote mental health services will continue to increase in rural nursing homes.”

Related Links:

— “Mental Health Care by Video Fills Gaps in Rural Nursing Homes ” Tony Leys, Kaiser Health News , March 21, 2023

Psychiatric News (3/20) reports, “Older adults who develop delirium after a surgery may experience faster cognitive decline than those who do not develop post-surgery delirium,” investigators concluded after analyzing “data from the Successful Aging after Elective Surgery…cohort, which included 560 adults aged 70 years and older who showed no signs of dementia and were scheduled for an elective surgery.” The study team examined “cognitive data collected up to six years after the participants’ elective surgeries.” The findingswere published online March 20 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Related Links:

— “Postoperative Delirium Associated With Accelerated Cognitive Decline, Study Finds, Psychiatric News, March 20, 2023

Healio (3/20, Weldon) reports, “For the first time, a study found a link between the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on family finances and children’s mental health, researchers” concluded in a study that “used data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development…study to examine 6,030 children aged between 12 and 14 years.” The study revealed that “financial disruptions during the pandemic worsened children’s levels of stress, sadness and worries related to COVID-19, with no similar impact seen from school closures.” The findings were published online March 13 in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Study: Pandemic-related impact on family finances worsened child mental health “Rose Weldon, Healio, March 20, 2023

The Hill (3/16, Choi) reported, “Federal actions during the pandemic led to uninsured rates falling to record lows, especially among Black and Hispanic people, but a new report released by the Commonwealth Fund suggests these improvements are vulnerable to being lost once the COVID-19 public health emergency officially ends in less than two months.”

Related Links:

— “Coverage gains for Black and Hispanic people during pandemic could be lost with end of public health emergency “Joseph Choi, The Hill , March 16, 2023

Psychiatric News (3/17) reported, “One in five deaths by suicide is related to problems with current or former intimate partners such as divorce, separation, romantic breakups, arguments, jealousy, conflicts, and intimate partner violence,” CDC investigators concluded after analyzing “data from the National Violent Death Reporting System for 402,391 adults who died by suicide between 2003 and 2020.” The findingswere published online March 15 ahead of print in American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Related Links:

— “1 in 5 Deaths by Suicide Related to Intimate Partner Problems, Psychiatric News , March 17, 2023

Healio (3/17, VanDeWater) reported, “Self- and reflected appraisals differed over time between people with depression and people with euthymic mood,” which “indicate people’s alignment of self-perception and others’ perception of them.” The study, which “recruited 252 adults with either depression (n = 76) or euthymic mood (n = 176),” revealed that “temporal self-appraisals and reflected appraisals were not similar in people with depression, but were similar in people with euthymic mood.” The findings were published online ahead of print in the April issue of the Journal of Affective Disorders.

Related Links:

— “Temporal self-, reflected appraisal differs between people with depression, euthymic mood “Kalie VanDewater, Healio, March 17, 2023

Healio (3/16, VanDewater) reports, “Participation in an outreach program following a nonfatal opioid overdose was associated with lower risk for later overdose death, according to” study data. Researchers “evaluated the rate of opioid overdose deaths per quarter from 2013 to June 30, 2019, in 93 Massachusetts municipalities that had at least 30 opioid-related emergency medical services responses in 2015,” and “there were 58 municipalities with outreach programs by the second quarter of 2019.” The findings were published online March 15 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Outreach program after opioid overdose decreases later overdose death “Kalie VanDewater, Healio, March 16, 2023

Psychiatric News (3/16) reports, “Patients who enrolled in a trial of medication treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) who did not start or complete their assigned medication were at greater risk of experiencing an overdose than those who took their medication, according to a study published in The American Journal of Psychiatry,” a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

Related Links:

— “Certain Patients With OUD Remain at Risk of Overdose After Entering Treatment, Psychiatric News , March 16, 2023

HCPlive (3/16, Walter) reports “new research from Scandinavia” suggests “pregnant women treated with antidepressants do benefit more from the continued use of the treatment.” In their “cohort study, the investigators” looked at “nationwide registers in Denmark and Norway involving 41,475 live-born singleton pregnancies in Denmark between 1997-2016 and 16,459 live-born singleton pregnancies in Norway between 2009-2018 for women who filled at least 1 antidepressant prescription within 6 months prior to pregnancy.” Investigators “obtained data on antidepressant prescription fills from the prescription registers and modeled antidepressant treatment during pregnancy using the k-means longitudinal method.” The findings were published online March 8 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Pregnant Women With Severe Mental Illness Benefit From Continued Antidepressant Use “Kenny Walter, HCPlive, March 16, 2023

The AP (3/15, Seitz, Miller) reports that on Wednesday, President Biden “said his administration was focused ‘intensely’ on lowering health care costs.” Speaking in Las Vegas, Biden discussed how the Administration is rolling out provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act “that cap the price of insulin, make most vaccines free and allow the federal government to negotiate deals on a handful of pharmaceutical drugs for Medicare enrollees.”

Related Links:

— “Biden says he’s focused ‘intensely’ on lowering drug costs “Amanda Seitz and Zeke Miller, AP , March 15, 2023