The AP (4/1, Kruesi, Finley) reported “COVID-19 hospitalization numbers have plunged to their lowest levels since” the summer of 2020. The AP added, “The number of patients hospitalized with the coronavirus has fallen more than 90% in more than two months, and some hospitals are going days without a single COVID-19 patient in the ICU for the first time since early 2020.” Physicians “hope to see a correction to the slide in pediatric visits, yearly checkups and cancer screenings.”

CNN (4/1, McPhillips) reported that as of Friday, there were “16,138 people in the hospital with COVID-19 – fewer than there have ever been since the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services first started tracking in July 2020.”

Related Links:

— “Number of COVID patients in US hospitals reaches record low “Ben Finley and Kimberlee Kruesi, AP, April 1, 2022

Healio (4/1, Herpen) reported, “According [to] the 2022 Apollo Healthcare Predictions” report, “45% of U.S. physicians say they personally have experienced burnout in the past two years, compared with 25% of their European counterparts,” investigators concluded. Staffing concerns “in their hospitals or clinics were cited by 62% of American” physicians, “but only 49% in Europe, while one in three U.S.” physicians “and one in four European physicians have considered leaving the medical profession during the past year.” For physicians in the US, “in 2022, this number (34%) is nearly double what it was in 2021 (18%).” Click here to gain access to the report.

Related Links:

— “Physician burnout, staffing shortages top list of concerns as COVID-19 becomes endemic “Robert Herpen, Healio, April 1, 2022

Kaiser Health News (4/1, Newsome) reported, “Black students at predominantly white institutions” of higher learning “report everything from instances of thinly veiled racism, homophobia, and sexism to outright racial hostility and intimidation.” Such “racist incidents can take a toll on students’ overall health and well-being, undermine their self-confidence, and affect academic performance, said” Annelle Primm, MD, MPH, “senior medical director for the Steve Fund, a nonprofit focused on supporting the mental health of young people of color.” What’s more, “the history of racism in the fields of psychology and psychiatry makes many Black people leery of seeking help.” In 2021, “the American Psychiatric Association apologized for the organization’s ‘appalling past actions’ and pledged to institute ‘anti-racist practices.’”

Related Links:

— “Black Students Experiencing Racism on Campus Lack Mental Health Support “Melba Newsome, Kaiser Health News , April 1, 2022

MedPage Today (4/1, Wu) reported, “Adolescents with substance use disorder (SUD) were more likely to have subsequent prescription” medication “use and symptoms of SUD in adulthood,” investigators concluded in an analysis of “Monitoring the Future study” data that “used questionnaires to assess SUD symptoms over a 32-year period from ages 18 (when participants were high school seniors) to 50, beginning in 1975.” The 5,317-respondent study revealed that “students with two or more SUD symptoms at age 18 had higher odds of medical prescription” medication “use and prescription” medicine “misuse in adulthood, and 61.6% of adolescents with the most severe SUD symptoms (six or more) had at least two SUD symptoms in adulthood.” The findings were published online April 1 in JAMA Network Open.

According to Psychiatric News (4/1), “in an accompanying editorial, National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Director Nora Volkow, MD, and Eric M. Wargo, PhD, also of NIDA, reflected on the potential value of screening that captures the intensity of substance use by adolescents as well as the need for interventions targeting substance use in this population,” writing, “Drug use and related behavioral problems are preventable when communities, schools, and health care systems are willing to invest in evidence-based prevention and therapeutic interventions appropriate to the youth’s risks.” The editorialists continued, “For this to occur, healthcare systems must incorporate screening for drug use and SUD, including SUD severity, in office visits, and ensure that screening, prevention, and quality treatment are reimbursable by insurance.”

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

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.”

Related Links:

— “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.

Related Links:

— “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.

Related Links:

— “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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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)