HealthDay (3/15, Munez) reports, “In the past two decades, a growing number of preteens have taken medicines or other chemicals as a way to end their lives,” investigators concluded after examining data “collected in the National Poison Data System for children aged six to 18.” The study revealed “a 4.5-fold increase in suicidal ingestion cases among children between the ages of 10 and 12 since 2000.” The findingswere published online March 14 in a research letter in JAMA Pediatrics.

Related Links:

— “Suicide Rate Is Spiking Upwards in Preadolescent Children “Cara Murez, HealthDay, March 15, 2022

HealthDay (3/15, Reinberg) reports, “People who have severe COVID-19 are at higher risk for depression and other mental woes that can last more than a year, a large study suggests.” Investigators “reported that COVID patients who were bedridden but not hospitalized for a week or more can experience depression, anxiety, distress and trouble sleeping up to 16 months after being ill.” The researchers’ findings were published in The Lancet.

Related Links:

— “Mental Issues Can Linger More Than a Year After Severe COVID “Steven Reinberg, HealthDay, March 15, 2022

Newsweek (3/14, Slisco) reports, “American soldiers are not receiving adequate and timely care for alcohol abuse issues, according to a new report from the Department of Defense (DoD) Office of Inspector General.” Results of an audit “found that 104 out of 270 active duty service members sent for alcohol use disorder treatment did not receive an intake assessment to be diagnosed on time.” Furthermore, “another 98 were diagnosed but not sent to treatment within a required timeline, while three diagnosed soldiers did not ultimately receive any treatment.” The inspector general’s report “found that treatment was not provided on time due to guidance on the matter being ‘unclear and inconsistent’ with inadequate staffing at treatment facilities and deferrals of treatment by soldiers and their commanders also playing a role.”

Related Links:

— “U.S. Soldiers Not Receiving Alcohol Abuse Treatment They Need: DOD Study “Aila Slisco, Newsweek, March 14, 2022

HealthDay (3/14, Mozes) reports, “A fresh review of recent government surveys suggests the well-being of 73 million American kids is under strain and seems to be getting worse.” Researchers “looked at recent results from the U.S. National Survey of Children’s Health” and “found that between 2016 and 2019, childhood diagnoses of anxiety rose by 27%, while depression risk rose by 24%” and “once the pandemic struck…behavioral problems appeared to worsen even more.” Furthermore, “the analysis also indicates that about a fifth of kids who need mental health services are not getting them.” The findings were published in JAMA Pediatrics.

Related Links:

— “Mental Health of America’s Children Only Getting Worse “Alan Mozes, HealthDay, March 14, 2022

Healio (3/14, Herpen) reports, “Independent of treatment, socioeconomic factors such as employment are closely associated with prognosis for adults with depression, according to” a study. Investigators “sought to determine if socioeconomic issues like employment status, financial strain, housing status and education have an impact on the prognosis for adults with depression, independent of treatment and after accounting for clinical prognostic factors.” The analysis “pulled data from The Embase, International Pharmaceutical Abstracts, MEDLINE, PsycINFO and Cochrane (CENTRAL) databases from inception of each through Oct. 8, 2021.” The findings were published in JAMA Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Socioeconomic factors associated with prognosis in adults with depression “Robert Herpen, Healio, March 14, 2022

MedPage Today (3/11, George) reported, “Peripheral nerve impairments in older adults were tied to a higher risk of subsequent dementia,” investigators concluded after examining “data on 2,174 people who were 70 to 79 years old and dementia-free when they enrolled in the National Institute on Aging’s Health ABC study.” Research revealed that “combined sensory and motor impairments in the lower leg doubled the risk of subsequent dementia…compared with people who had no leg impairments,” while “sensory nerve impairments alone were associated with a 1.4 times higher dementia risk.” The findings were published online in the journal Neurology.

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

Psychiatric News (3/11) reported, “Older patients who survive severe COVID-19 have a much higher risk of cognitive decline compared with their peers who do not get COVID-19,” researchers posited after analyzing “data from 1,438 COVID-19 survivors older than 60 years who were discharged from three COVID-19–designated hospitals in Wuhan, China, from February 10 to April 10, 2020, including 260 who had severe illness and 1,178 who had nonsevere illness.” Serving as controls were “438 uninfected spouses of infected patients.” The findings were published online March 8 in JAMA Neurology.

Related Links:

— “COVID-19 Raises Risk of Cognitive Decline in Older Patients, Study Finds, Psychiatric News, March 11, 2022

The Hill (3/10, Weixel) reports that in 2021, “about 2.55 million combined U.S. middle and high school students” reported current use of tobacco products, “according to the government’s National Youth Tobacco Survey.” The findingspublished in the CDC’s Morbidity and Morality Weekly Report found that “more than 5 million high school students, and more than 1 million middle schoolers reported using tobacco products at any time in 2021, and the majority of students said they received the product from a friend.” The figures “are down considerably from the 4.47 million tobacco users in 2020.”

CNN (3/10, Nedelman) reports, “Students identifying as LGBT more frequently reported current use of tobacco products: about 14% of lesbian, gay and bisexual students and about 19% of transgender students.” The “numbers were also higher among students experiencing severe psychological distress: 14.2% versus 5.5% among those reporting no distress.”

Related Links:

— “CDC: 2.5M middle and high school students used tobacco products last year “Nathaniel Weixel, The Hill, March 10, 2022

Psychiatric News (3/10) reports, “At age 45, people who reported using cannabis weekly or more frequently over the past year showed greater cognitive decline than those who never used cannabis,” investigators concluded after having “analyzed data from the Dunedin Longitudinal Study, a birth cohort of participants (93% white) born between April 1972 and March 1973 in Dunedin, New Zealand.” Each participant was “assessed regularly starting at age three until age 45.” The findings were published online March 8 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

Related Links:

— “Long-Term Cannabis Use Associated With Cognitive Deficits in Midlife, Psychiatric News, March 10, 2022

Healio (3/10, Herpen) reports, “Postpartum unwanted intrusive thoughts based on intentional infant-related harm or obsessive-compulsive disorder [OCD] were not associated with elevated risk of harm to infants,” investigators concluded in a study that “drew from a prospective, province-wide sample of 763 English-speaking women who had just given birth and were aged 19 years and older,” to which “a total of 388 participants responded.” The findings were published online in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Postpartum thoughts of infant-related harm, OCD unrelated to risk of maternal aggression “Robert Herpen, Healio, March 10, 2022