According to Psychiatric News (6/8), the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has “denounced the ‘false and harmful attempts to link mental illness and gun violence’ in a statement issued” June 7 “in partnership with 59 other health, mental health, and youth services organizations.” The statement said, “The horrific school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 children and two adults on May 24th is just one in a long series of mass shootings throughout our country,” adding, “These shootings have one thing in common – easy access to weapons that can kill with terrifying efficiency on a massive scale.”

Related Links:

— “APA Joins Numerous Organizations in Denouncing Attempts to Link Mental Illness and Gun Violence, Psychiatric News, June 8, 2022

Healio (6/7) reports studies have “shown that questions about physicians’ mental health on state licensing and credentialing applications often discourage them from seeking mental health treatment.” Such “questions frequently contain stigmatizing language that lead to concerns about potential repercussions to the physicians’ medical licensure if they acknowledge having mental health conditions, according to Saranya Loehrer, MD, MPH, the founder of C3 Collaboratives and a faculty member at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and Ankita Sagar, MD, MPH, FACP, the system vice president for Clinical Standards and Variation Reduction and Physician Enterprise at CommonSpirit Health.” The two physicians “are working with a national coalition group to remove stigmatizing language regarding mental health on licensing and credentialing applications” as “part of the Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act, which was recently signed into law to address the stigma that health care professionals face when seeking mental health services.”

Related Links:

— “Q&A: Physicians call for changes to medical licensing applications, Healio, June 7, 2022

Healio (6/7, Downey) reports, “Family member involvement or previous diagnoses of depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder [OCD] is most likely how extremists and conspiracy theorists end up in psychiatric care, Jack S. Rozel, MD, said” in an interview conducted at the American Psychiatric Association 2022 Annual Meeting. Dr. Rozel said, “Someone isn’t going to walk in and want to talk about their racist beliefs or antisemitic ideology.” Rather, “more likely than not, they’re already coming in for depression or OCD and, incidentally, you will see their extremist belief systems,” Dr. Rozel added.

Related Links:

— “VIDEO: Extremists typically do not seek help on their own “Ken Downey Jr., Healio, June 7, 2022

Psychiatric News (6/7) reports, “Patients with schizophrenia who switch from oral antipsychotics to long-acting injectables (LAIs) within the first three years of treatment can reduce their risk of symptom relapse, future rehospitalizations, and mortality,” while “patients who had been taking oral medications for three years or more prior to switching showed no significant improvements outside of improved medication adherence,” investigators concluded in a study that “identified 678 patients who were having a psychotic episode and were switched from oral medication to an LAI during hospitalization; they continued to receive the LAI after discharge.” The findings were published online in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Patients With Schizophrenia Switched Early to LAIs Show Markedly Better Long-Term Outcomes, Psychiatric News, June 7, 2022

HCPlive (6/6, Grossi) reports research indicates that “compared with healthy controls, youth with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) exhibit sleep disturbance on subjective sleep measures but sleep disturbance is not observed with objective sleep measures in this population.” Included in the study were “26 youth with OCD and 35 youth who served as healthy controls.” The findings were presented at SLEEP 2022.

Related Links:

— “
Objective Measures Show Youth with OCD Do Not Experience Increased Sleep Disturbance “Giuliana Grossi, HCPlive, June 6, 2022

Healio (6/6, Marabito) reports, “Adults with autism reported poorer access to healthcare, poorer communication with physicians and a higher prevalence of chronic conditions compared with adults without autism,” investigators concluded in a study that “administered an anonymized, cross-sectional, self-report questionnaire to 1,285 adults with autism and 1,364 adults without autism in the U.K. between July 2019 and January 2021.” The findings were published online May 26 in the journal Molecular Autism.

Related Links:

— “Adults with autism report poorer health care “Maria Marabito, Healio, June 6, 2022

According to the Washington Post (6/6, Villegas), in the days since the school shootings in Uvalde, TX, “therapists have flooded the town, offering counseling to grief-stricken residents.” In the next few weeks or months, however, “most of those support organizations will leave,” and even though “several public and private practices in the town offer behavioral and mental health services, experts say Uvalde lacks inpatient treatment options, and enough psychiatrists specializing in children and adolescents.” Despite Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R-TX) promises to increase the region’s mental health resources, “a recent report by the nonprofit Mental Health America ranked the Lone Star State 51st in the nation on access to mental health care – a ranking that weighs access to insurance and treatment, quality and cost of insurance, access to special education, and mental health workforce availability.”

Related Links:

— “The Washington Post (requires login and subscription)

The New York Times (6/5, A1, Barry) reports, “School-based services, which studies suggest can significantly decrease suicidal behavior and substance abuse, have emerged as a first-line policy response” to address the mental health crisis among US children and adolescents. Over the past 12 months, “legislators in more than 30 states have considered an expansion of school-based services, according to Inseparable, a mental health policy group, and eight states, including Connecticut, have passed legislation to do so.” Nevertheless, “before the services reach students, though, they must be embraced by American communities.” The Times detailed the “fierce opposition” expanded school mental health services faced in Killingly, CT.

Related Links:

— “A Mental Health Clinic in School? No, Thanks, Says the School Board “Ellen Barry, The New York Times, June 5, 2022

Psychiatric News (6/3) reported, “Patients between 75 and 80 years old who take opioids have an increased risk of dementia,” researchers concluded after examining “data from 91,307 older people in an Israeli HMO.” The findings were published online May 31 ahead of print in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Opioids Linked to Increased Dementia Risk in Patients Older Than 75, Psychiatric News , June 3, 2022

According to the AP (6/4), Cailin Bracken, who decided to leave the Vanderbilt University lacrosse team in order to deal with mental health struggles, has written “an open letter to college sports, calling on coaches and administrators to become more cognizant of the challenges athletes face in navigating not only their competitive side, but also their social and academic responsibilities.” Bracken wrote the letter in response to multiple suicides involving student-athletes. Even though it remains unclear “whether U.S. college athletes are taking their lives at a higher rate than others in their age range,” colleges and “universities are starting to pay closer attention to the mental health of their athletes – in varying degrees – and it’s partly because athletes are advocating for themselves and their teammates.”

Related Links:

— “College athletes push mental health to the forefront “Hank Kurz Jr. and Erica Hunzinger, AP, June 4, 2022