Modern Healthcare (2/24, Hellmann, Subscription Publication) reports healthcare professionals, “patient advocates and key lawmakers are taking aim at health insurers as Congress drafts legislation to tackle the behavioral health crisis, arguing that low reimbursement rates and restrictions on coverage are limiting access to care.” Lawmakers “are looking to toughen enforcement of mental health parity laws and address a reimbursement paradigm that” healthcare professionals “say undervalues behavioral healthcare.” The article adds that healthcare professionals and health insurance companies “agree on one key problem: Increasingly fewer behavioral health professional accept private or public insurance, so their patients must pay out of pocket.” American Psychiatric Association CEO and medical director Dr. Saul Levin said, “I need to make sure that all of my psychiatrists come back into the system if they’ve opted out of it, and ensuring parity of payment is really important to that.”

Related Links:

— “Providers push for higher reimbursement as Congress debates mental health legislation “Jessie Hellmann, Modern Healthcare, February 24, 2022

Healio (2/24, Holden) reports, “Older adults, children, men and certain racial and ethnic groups were found to be underrepresented in U.S.-based clinical trials on eating disorders,” investigators concluded after reviewing data from “21 interventional trials conducted within the U.S.” and then collecting “data on age, sex, race, ethnicity and primary diagnosis, which was classified as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder or other.” The findings were published online Feb. 21 in a research letter in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Men, some ethnic groups underrepresented in US eating disorder clinical trials “Lisa Holden, Healio, February 24, 2022

HealthDay (2/23, Mozes) reports, “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued another pointed warning about the dangers posed by tianeptine, an antidepressant that is not approved for any type of medical treatment in the United States.” Topping this “list of possible risks from taking the drug: accidental poisoning and addiction.” The FDA stated in the warning, “In the U.S., reports of bad reactions and unwanted effects involving tianeptine are increasing. … Poison control center cases involving tianeptine exposure have increased nationwide, from 11 total cases between 2000 and 2013 to 151 cases in 2020 alone.

Related Links:

— “FDA Warns of Rising Dangers of Unapproved Drug Tianeptine “Alan Mozes, CNN, February 23, 2022

CNN (2/23, Ahmed, Elamroussi) reports “firearm deaths have overtaken car crashes” as “the leading cause of death by trauma in the U.S., according to a…study” that found “in 2017, there were 1.44 million years of potential life lost due to firearm deaths, edging out that of motor vehicle crashes (1.37 million years).” The trend “continued in 2018,” the findings published in Trauma Surgery and Acute Care Open revealed.

Also, The Hill (2/23, Choi) reports that according to the findings, “the majority of the nearly 40,000 firearms deaths – 85.4% – occurred among men.” For the study, researchers reviewed data from the CDC’s National Vital Statistics Reports between 2009 and 2018.

Related Links:

— “Guns overtake car crashes as leading cause of US trauma-related deaths, study says “Tasnim Ahmed and Aya Elamroussi, CNN, February 23, 2022

MedPage Today (2/23, Grant) reports, “The hottest days on record over the last decade were linked with increased mental health-related emergency department (ED) visits among U.S. adults,” investigators concluded. After using “medical claims data from 2010 to 2019, extreme heat days – the 95th percentile for warm-season temperature distribution,” researchers found they “were associated with a modestly higher rate of ED visits for any mental health condition.” The findings were published online Feb. 23 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Healio (2/23, Gramigna) also covers the study.

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

HealthDay (2/23, Preidt) reports, “Millions of American adults take a potentially deadly duo of prescription opioid painkillers and sedatives at the same time, researchers warn.” The researchers “analyzed Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data” and “estimated that 2.6 million American adults…are prescribed an opioid, a benzodiazepine and another type of sedative at the same time.” Furthermore, the study published in Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine “found that the highest rates of dual sedative prescriptions were among opioid users with severe pain, anxiety, depression, stress and sleep disorders.”

Related Links:

— “Millions of Americans Are Taking Risky Opioid/Sedative Combo ” Robert Preidt, HealthDay , February 23, 2022

CNN (2/22, LaMotte) reports “women who experience sexual violence, workplace sexual harassment or both have a higher long-term risk of developing high blood pressure than women with no such trauma, according to” a study that “analyzed data from a 2008 report from the ongoing Nurses’ Health Study II.” The study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that “women who reported having experienced both sexual assault and workplace sexual harassment had a 21% increased risk of hypertension.”

Moreover, HealthDay (2/22, Preidt) reports, “Compared to those with no history of sexual assault or harassment, the risk of high blood pressure was…15% higher among those who experienced workplace sexual harassment; and 11% higher among sexual assault victims.” Separately, the investigators “found no increased risk of high blood pressure among women who had a history of other types of trauma and not sexual violence.”

Related Links:

— “https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/22/health/sexual-trauma-high-blood-pressure-wellness/index.html “Sandee LaMotte, CNN, February 22, 2022

Fox News (2/22, Musto) reports, “Family members of patients hospitalized in the intensive care unit (ICU) for COVID-19 were more likely to have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than those of patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) from another illness, according to researchers.” The research team “found PTSD in 35% of family members related to patients with COVID-19 ARDS, compared with 19% for any other cases of respiratory issues.” The findings of the prospective cohort study were published in JAMA.

Related Links:

— “Relatives of patients with severe COVID-19 more likely to experience PTSD: study ” Julia Musto, Fox News, February 22, 2022

Psychiatric News (2/22) reports, “Among youth at risk for suicide, a text messaging intervention may help reduce suicidal thoughts and behaviors after discharge from an emergency department [ED],” researchers concluded in a small study that “recruited patients aged 12 to 17 who were seen in the Johns Hopkins Pediatric Emergency Department (PED) for suicidal thoughts or behaviors, or who screened positive for acute suicide risk on the Ask Suicide-Screening Questions tool to participate in a program evaluating the effectiveness of a text message intervention.” After receiving four messages, 27 of the 37 patients in the study completed a survey in which “78%…reported that the text messages had a positive impact on their mental health, 67% reported reduced suicidal ideation, and 74% reported that the messages helped prevent them from engaging in suicidal behavior.” The findings were published online Feb. 17 in Psychiatric Services, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

Related Links:

— “Text Messaging Intervention May Reduce Suicidal Thoughts Among At-Risk Youth, Psychiatric News, February 22, 2022

Healio (2/22, Gramigna) reports, “Among patients with first-episode psychosis [FEP], the effectiveness of antipsychotics for relapse prevention decreased significantly after the second occurrence,” researchers concluded after using “the nationwide Hospital Discharge register in Finland” to identify 5,367 “inpatients with first-episode schizophrenia aged 45 years or younger who were followed for five years of illness or until a fifth relapse episode.” The findings were published online Feb. 16 in The Lancet Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Antipsychotics for relapse prevention less effective a second time “Joe Gramigna, Healio , February 22, 2022