HealthDay (12/20, Thompson) reports, “Anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress are common among people caring for the victim of a recent stroke, a new study has found.” Almost “30% of caregivers of severe stroke patients experience stress and emotional problems during the first year after the patient leaves the hospital, according to a report in the journal Neurology.”

Related Links:

— “Depression, Anxiety Common in Caregivers of Stroke Survivors,” Dennis Thompson, HealthDay, December 20, 2023

Healio (12/19, Southall) reports, “First-generation medical students reported experiencing increased adversity with inadequate institutional support during undergraduate medical training, according to study results published in JAMA Network Open.” Specifically, the “results showed four common themes experienced by first-generation students, including: isolation and exclusion associated with being new to the field of medicine; difficulty with access to basic resources, such as food, rent and transportation; an overall lack of faculty or institutional support to address these challenges; and an overall sense of needing to rely on grit and resilience to survive.”

Related Links:

— “Structural change needed to retain next generation of diverse, first-generation physicians,” Jennifer R. Southall, Healio, December 19, 2023

HealthDay (12/19, Thompson) reports, “Flipping through Instagram or TikTok might seem like a good way to relax during a work break, but social media actually could be making you less happy on the job. Workers who cut down on their social media use 30 minutes a day on the job had better mental health, job satisfaction and commitment to their occupation, a new study reports.”

The results were published in the journal Behavior and Information Technology.

Related Links:

— “Bummed Out at Work? Cutting Down on Social Media May Help,” Dennis Thompson, HealthDay, December 19, 2023

Parkinson’s News Today (12/19, Wexler) reports, “Nuplazid (pimavanserin) outperformed a placebo at managing psychosis in people with Parkinson’s disease dementia in a Phase 3 clinical trial.” This result “‘supports the maintenance of antipsychotic efficacy and safety of [Nuplazid] in patients with Parkinson’s disease dementia and psychosis,’ the researchers wrote” in Parkinsonism and Related Disorders.

Related Links:

— “Nuplazid effectively treats psychosis in Parkinson’s dementia patients,” Marisa Wexler, Parkinson’s News Today, December 19, 2023

Psychiatric News (12/19) reports, “Over 75% U.S. adults plan to start 2024 with a New Year’s resolution – including 28% who are resolving to work on improving their mental health, according to APA’s latest Healthy Minds monthly poll.” Of the respondents “who want to work on improving their mental health, the most common steps they plan to take toward this goal include exercising more (67%) or meditation (49%). Other actions included seeing a therapist or psychiatrist (35% and 21%, respectively) and journaling (26%).”

Related Links:

— “More Than 1 in 4 U.S. Adults Plans to Make Mental Health a Priority in 2024,” APA Psychiatric News Alert, December 19, 2023

HCP Live (12/15, Smith) reported the FDA “announced that it has approved of newly-required measures related to safety labels for opioid pain medicines, part of a move to support patients’ ability to make better-informed decisions about opioid use.” Announced Friday, “the FDA’s decision is considered to be part of the agency’s Overdose Prevention Framework. The framework outlines the FDA’s commitment to taking actions to prevent overdoses and decrease drug-related fatalities.”

Related Links:

— “FDA Announces Approval of Opioid Pain Medication Safety Labeling Changes,” Tim Smith, HCP Live, December 15, 2023

Healio (12/15, Weldon) reported, “The rate of e-cigarette use increased more than fivefold among adolescents in late pregnancy from 2016 to 2021, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open.” In the study, researchers “found that the weighted prevalence of exclusive e-cigarette use during late pregnancy increased from 0.8% in 2016 to 4.1% in 2021, whereas the prevalence of exclusive cigarette use decreased from 9.2% in 2017 to 3.2% in 2021.”

Related Links:

— “E-cigarette use increases among pregnant adolescents,” Rose Weldon, Healio, December 15, 2023

PatientEngagementHIT (12/15, Heath) reported, “About a million Medicare enrollees have opioid use disorder (OUD), but only 18 percent of them received medication to treat OUD, according to a new Office of Inspector General report that illustrates continued medication assisted treatment (MAT) access problems.” The report “also revealed disparities in OUD treatment access, with Black, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, low-income, and over-65 beneficiaries facing greater challenges.”

Related Links:

— “Medication Access for OUD Abysmal for Medicare Enrollees,” Sara Heath, Patient Engagement HIT, December 15, 2023

HealthDay (12/14, Mundell) says that unintentional firearm injuries “have occurred in American homes hundreds of times over the past two decades, killing 1,262 children, according to a sobering new report” from the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. According to researchers, firearms used in these incidents “were often stored loaded (74%) and unlocked (76%) and were most commonly accessed from nightstands and other sleeping areas.” The report was published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Related Links:

— “Too Often, Unlocked, Loaded Guns Are Fatal Playthings for America’s Children,” Ernie Mundell, HealthDay, December 14, 2023

Healio (12/14, Weldon) reports, “More than 60% of 12th graders who responded to a yearly survey of junior high and high school students reported not using alcohol, cannabis or nicotine in the past 30 days – the highest level of abstention in the survey’s history.” Notably, “rates of lifetime abstention … significantly increased in 2023 among 10th and 12th graders and were at or near the highest levels ever recorded by Monitoring the Future, a survey conducted yearly by the University of Michigan and funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.”

Related Links:

— “Survey: More US teens abstaining from drugs, alcohol,” Rose Weldon, Healio, December 14, 2023