Psychiatric News (8/30) reports, “Medical teams may be more likely to seek an evaluation of a patient’s decision-making capacity if the patient is Black or Hispanic than if the patient is white or Asian,” investigators concluded “based on the review of 181 decisional capacity consultations for patients hospitalized at a tertiary care medical center from 2018 to 2019.” The study “involved a retrospective chart review of patient medical records, which contained demographic information, medical and surgical notes, and consultation-liaison psychiatry notes.” The findings were published online Aug. 25 in Psychiatric Services, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

Related Links:

— “Black and Hispanic Patients Disproportionately Referred for Decisional Capacity Consultations, Psychiatric News, August 30, 2022

HealthDay (8/29, Reinberg) reports, “Labor shortages at Teva Pharmaceuticals have made Adderall [amphetamine/dextroamphetamine],” a treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD), “hard to find in some drugstores,” even though the FDA has “noted that there’s no overall shortage of” medications to treat AD/HD. Just “Teva is reporting supply problems, FDA spokeswoman Cherie Duvall-Jones told NBC News.”

Related Links:

— “ADHD Drug Adderall in Short Supply “Steven Reinberg, HealthDay, August 29, 2022

CNN (8/29, Marples) reports “people in US states that legalized recreational cannabis use it 20% more frequently than those in states that didn’t legalize it,” according to a survey study comprising 3,421 participants, including “111 pairs of identical twins…with one twin living in a state that legalized recreational cannabis and the other in a state that did not legalize it.” The findings were published in the journal Addiction.

Related Links:

— “Legalizing recreational cannabis increases its use, research shows “Megan Marples, CNN, August 29, 2022

Psychiatric News (8/29) reports research published online Aug. 27 in Schizophrenia Bulletin indicates that “people with schizophrenia and/or bipolar disorder may remain at elevated risk of death from the” COVID-19 “virus compared with people without mental illness regardless of the availability of COVID-19 vaccines.” Included in the study were “48,912 people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, 13,932 with bipolar disorder, 152,489 with major depressive disorder, and 773,734 without a history of mental illness.”

Related Links:

— “Risk of Death From COVID-19 Remains Higher Among People With Serious Mental Illness, Psychiatric News, August 29, 2022

MedPage Today (8/26, Firth) reported, “‘Addressing mental health concerns among young people, in particular Black youth, is urgently needed,’…said” Michael Lindsey, PhD, MSW, MPH, dean and professor at the NYU Silver School of Social Work in New York City, during an online panel discussion that occurred Aug. 24 “hosted by the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism and sponsored by the Kristy Hammam Fund for Health Journalism.” What’s more, “suicide is now the second leading cause of death among young people, said” Lindsey, who also pointed out that “from 2019 to 2020, hospitals saw a 31% increase in youth emergency department visits related to self-harm behaviors.”

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

The New York Times (8/27, A1, Richtel, Flanagan) reported on the common medical practice of “the simultaneous use of multiple heavy-duty psychiatric” medications among adolescents. While “psychiatrists and other clinicians emphasize that psychiatric” medicines, “properly prescribed, can be vital in stabilizing adolescents and saving the lives of” teens with suicidal ideation, experts caution, however, that “such medications are too readily doled out, often as an easy alternative to therapy that families cannot afford or find, or aren’t interested in.” The medicines, “generally intended for short-term use, are sometimes prescribed for years, even though they can have severe side effects,” and a number of psychiatric medications “commonly prescribed to adolescents are not approved for people under 18.”

Related Links:

— “This Teen Was Prescribed 10 Psychiatric Drugs. She’s Not Alone. “Matt Richtel, The New York Times, August 27, 2022

HealthDay (8/25, Reinberg) reports “the length of your monthly menstrual cycle may provide clues about the severity of symptoms you’ll experience during menopause and when it will start,” according to a studypublished in the journal Menopause. Investigators “found that women with short menstrual cycles (less than 25 days) during their reproductive years were likely to experience more menopause symptoms” and “were also more likely to start menopause earlier than women with normal menstrual cycles (26 to 34 days).” The study also found “women with short cycles…were more likely to have midlife sleep problems, heart discomfort and depressive symptoms.”

Related Links:

— “Shorter Menstrual Cycles May Affect Timing of Menopause “Steven Reinberg, HealthDay, August 25, 2022

HealthPayerIntelligence (8/25, Bailey) reports “large employers plan to expand mental health and virtual care offerings in their 2023 employer-sponsored health plans, but concerns about healthcare costs and health equity persist, according to” Business Group on Health’s “2023 Large Employers’ Health Care Strategy and Plan Design Survey.” This survey found that about “half of the employers plan to continue to develop new health and wellbeing programs for remote employees and expand focus on social determinants of health.”

Related Links:

— “Employer Sponsored Health Plans Will Prioritize Mental Health in 2023 “Victoria Bailey, HealthPayerIntelligence , August 25, 2022

Psychiatric News (8/24) reports, “Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder” (AD/HD) “appear to be at higher risk of infectious diseases,” investigators concluded in a “large population-based case control study” that included “more than 50,000 children and adolescents.” The findings were published online Aug. 22 ahead of print in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Children With ADHD at Higher Risk of Infectious Diseases, Study Finds, Psychiatric News , August 24, 2022

The AP (8/24, Lavoie) reports “a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week became the first federal appellate court in the country to find that” gender dysphoria is covered by the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. This “ruling could become a powerful tool to challenge legislation restricting access to medical care and other accommodations for transgender people, including employment and government benefits, advocates said.” The appellate court “cited advances in medical understanding that led the American Psychiatric Association to remove gender identity disorder from the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and to add gender dysphoria, defined in the manual as the ‘clinically significant distress’ felt by some transgender people.”

Related Links:

— “Gender dysphoria covered by disability law, court rules” Denise Lavoie, AP, August 24, 2022