NPR (3/31, Chatterjee) reports, “Most nurses and other frontline health workers worked relentlessly over the past two years, surge after surge, through countless deaths and severe staffing shortages.” Now, “a majority are struggling with psychiatric symptoms.” For that reason, many nurses “want to see more support for their colleagues dealing with the emotional fallout from the” COVID-19 pandemic. Many now want “employers to create a less stressful, more supportive work environment with better access to mental healthcare, and a culture where it’s OK to ask for help.” Meanwhile, some nurses are “taking things into their own hands by being more open about their own mental health, and creating a way for nurses in crisis to get support from their peers.”

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— “A nurse’s death raises the alarm about the profession’s mental health crisis “Rhitu Chatterjee, NPR, April 31, 2022

Healio (3/31, Herpen) reports, “Children exposed to their parents’ patterns of suicidal behavior and methods are at a higher risk for repeating the same behaviors,” investigators concluded in a study that “examined national registries to include more than four million individuals from Denmark born after 1953, who were at least aged 10 years and living in the country at any point between Jan. 1, 1980 and Dec. 31, 2016.” The findings were published online March 27 in The Lancet Psychiatry.

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— “Suicidal behavior patterns in parents passed down to children, study finds “Robert Herpen, Healio, March 31, 2022

The Washington Post (3/31, Balingit) reports the CDC “is warning of an accelerating mental health crisis among adolescents, with more than four in 10 teens reporting that they feel ‘persistently sad or hopeless,’ and one in five saying they have contemplated suicide, according to the results of a survey published” online April 1 in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

According to the New York Times (3/31, Barry), the CDC’s “nationwide survey of 7,705 high school students conducted in the first half of 2021 built on earlier findings of high levels of emotional distress, with 44.2 percent describing persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness that prevented them from participating in normal activities, and nine percent reporting an attempt at suicide.” What’s more, it revealed “high rates of reported abuse, with 55.1 percent of teenage respondents saying they suffered emotional abuse from a parent or another adult in their house in the preceding year, and 11.3 percent saying they suffered physical abuse.” Reuters (3/31, Leo) also covers the story.

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— “The Washington Post (requires login and subscription)

Healio (3/30, Herpen) reports, “Benzodiazepine prescriptions for U.S. military veterans with PTSD declined due to decreased prevalence over a 10-year period,” investigators concluded in a study that “utilized Veterans Health Administration databases between 2009 and 2019 to examine prevalence and incidence of benzodiazepine prescriptions for veterans with PTSD, according to ICD-9/10 criteria.” The findings of the “retrospective observational study” were published online in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

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— “Benzodiazepine prescriptions for veterans with PTSD declined over 10-year period “Robert Herpen, Healio , March 30, 2022

Healio (3/30, Herpen) reports, “Cognitive impairment was more severe in hospitalized COVID-19 patients compared with those with other illnesses who required hospitalization,” researchers concluded in a study that “included 85 COVID-19 survivors (mean age 56.8 years, 42 women) and 61 matched controls (mean age 59.4 years, 27 women) who were evaluated six months after the onset of symptoms that required hospitalization.” The findings were published online March 23 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Cognitive outcomes worse in COVID-19 survivors than in others with similar illnesses “Robert Herpen, Healio, March 30, 2022

MedPage Today (3/30, Monaco) reports, “Bipolar disorder and its treatments may have very different implications for bone health,” investigators concluded. In the “retrospective cohort study,” researchers found that “among nearly 23,000 patients with bipolar disorder, the incidence rate of osteoporosis was 8.70 per 1,000 person-years compared with 7.90 per 1,000 person-years for an age- and sex-matched reference group.” The study also revealed, however, that “certain treatments for bipolar disorder appeared to not only offset this risk, but significantly reduce it.” In fact, “in a fully adjusted model, those with bipolar disorder who were on lithium – 38.2% of patients – saw a reduced risk for osteoporosis compared with those not on lithium.” The findings were published online March 30 in JAMA Psychiatry.

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MD Edge ObGyn (3/29, Haelle) reports, “Children prenatally exposed to opioids alone have an increased risk of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder” (AD/HD), “but interactions between opioids and both cannabis use and alcohol use were linked to varying levels of” AD/HD “risk as well,” investigators concluded in a study that included “3,138 children (50.4% of whom were male) with at least two years of follow-up, excluding children from multiple-gestation pregnancies, in vitro fertilization pregnancies, and deliveries involving major maternal trauma or major chromosomal anomalies.” The findings were published online in JAMA Network Open.

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— “ADHD link to prenatal opioid exposure shifts with other substances “Tara Haelle, MD Edge ObGyn, March 29, 2022

Healio (3/29, Herpen) reports, “Long-term cannabis users showed deficits in cognition and smaller hippocampal volume by midlife,” investigators concluded in a study involving “a representative cohort of 1,037 people born in Dunedin, New Zealand, between April 1972 and March 1973, who were followed through the age of 45 years.” Study “participants were assessed for cannabis use and dependence at ages 18, 21, 26, 32, 38 and 45, with IQ gauged at ages 7, 9, 11 and 45 years.” The study revealed that “long-term cannabis users’ IQ declined from childhood to midlife (mean = 5.5 IQ points), with resultant poorer learning and processing speed relative to their childhood IQ, as well as memory and attention problems.” The findingswere published online March 8 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

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— “Long-term cannabis use linked to cognitive deficits, lower hippocampal volume in midlife “Robert Herpen, Healio, March 29, 2022

The New York Times (3/28, Hughes) reports, “Analyzing survey responses of more than 84,000 people of all ages in Britain,” investigators have “identified two distinct periods of adolescence when heavy use of social media spurred lower ratings of ‘life satisfaction’: first around puberty – ages 11 to 13 for girls, and 14 to 15 for boys – and then again for both sexes around age 19.” The findings were published online March 28 in the journal Nature.

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— “Does Social Media Make Teens Unhappy? It May Depend on Their Age. “Virginia Hughes, The New York Times, March 28, 2022

MedPage Today (3/28, Bassett) reports that patients with cancer “are at a particularly high risk of mental health disorders and suicide, two studies showed.” In one study, investigators found that patients with cancer “have nearly twice the risk of suicide compared with the general population, and about a 3.5 times greater risk if their cancers are known to have a poor prognosis.” The other study “showed that the high proportion of” patients with cancer “with psychological disorders subsequently have a higher risk of self-harm and mortality, compared with other patients with cancer.” The studies were published in Nature Medicine.

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)