HealthDay (3/11) reports, “Chronic pain can keep kids from being social and active, leading to anxiety and depression…says” Taranjeet Jolly, MD, a child “psychiatrist at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Harrisburg,” PA. What’s more, “this can turn into a vicious cycle – worsening depression and anxiety can also worsen pain perception.” Parents should talk with their youngsters “about what’s going on and follow up with a pediatrician, he suggested.” If a child “is diagnosed with depression, follow up with a child psychiatrist, he advised.”

Related Links:

— “When Chronic Pain Leads to Depression in Kids, HealthDay, March 11, 2020

The New York Times (3/11, Frakt, Carroll) reports, “An updated systematic review published” online March 11 in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews “found that A.A. (Alcoholics Anonymous) leads to increased rates and lengths of abstinence compared with other common treatments.” Additionally, “Alcoholics Anonymous not only produced higher rates of abstinence and remission, but it also did so at a lower cost, the Cochrane review found. A.A. meetings are free to attend,” while treatments using the healthcare system can be expensive.

USA Today (3/11, Rodriguez, O’Donnell) reports the review “had the opposite findings of a similar study published by Cochrane in 2006 that found ‘no experimental studies unequivocally demonstrated the effectiveness of AA or TSF (Twelve-step facilitation) approaches for reducing alcohol dependence of problems.’”

Reuters (3/11, Carroll) reports, “In an analysis of pooled data from 27 earlier studies, researchers found a 20% higher rate of abstinence for one year among people who attended AA or a 12-step program that encourages participation in AA.” Included in the review were “studies that compared 12-step programs to other addiction treatments.” The 27 studies “included 10,565 patients with an average age of 34.”

Providing similar coverage are Newsweek (3/11, Crowley) and Healio (3/11, Gramigna).

Related Links:

— “Alcoholics Anonymous vs. Other Approaches: The Evidence Is Now In, “Austin Frakt and Aaron E. Carroll,  The New York Times,  March 11, 2020

Healio (3/10, Gramigna) reports, “Migrant density may reduce risk for psychotic disorders among migrants and their children,” investigators concluded after collecting “Swedish register data of migrants and their children born between 1982 and 1996,” then tracking “participants from age 15 years or date of migration until study end, death or emigration and used an ICD-10 diagnosis of nonaffective psychosis as the outcome.” The findings of the 468,223-individual, “national, longitudinal cohort study” were published online March 5 in The Lancet Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Migrant density associated with risk for nonaffective psychosis, “Joe Gramigna, Healio, March 10, 2020

Medscape (3/10, Yasgur, Subscription Publication) reports, “Reading another person’s firsthand account of a suicidal crisis appears to reduce suicide risk in individuals with suicidal thoughts, even in persons who have previously attempted suicide,” researchers concluded. For the study, investigators randomized “266 adults…who had recently experienced suicidal ideation into three groups.” Of this group of people, “51 had attempted suicide within the past year.” The study revealed that “suicidal adults who read a first-person account by an individual who successfully coped with such a crisis experienced a 20% reduction in suicidal thoughts.” The findings were published online Dec. 17 in the British Journal of Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

MedPage Today (3/9, Monaco) reports, “Gabapentin (Neurontin, Gralise) may be a useful aid for people suffering from alcohol use disorder (AUD),” research indicated. During the “16-week trial, 27% adults who met the criteria for AUD, and who received up to 1,200 mg a day of gabapentin, had no heavy drinking days versus only 9% of those on placebo.” the study revealed. The findings were published online March 9 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Psychiatric News (3/9) reports the study “enrolled 96 adults who met the DSM-5 diagnosis for AUD, including alcohol withdrawal.”

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

In a nearly 5,000-word feature piece, USA Today (3/9, Wedell, Sherman, Chadde) reports, “Farmers are among the most likely to die by suicide, compared with other occupations…a January study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention” concluded. That same study also revealed that “suicide rates overall had increased by 40% in less than two decades.” While suicides have “plagued agricultural communities across the nation,” the Midwest has seen a particular rise. There “extreme weather and falling prices have bludgeoned dairy and crop producers in recent years.” In fact, “more than 450 farmers killed themselves across nine Midwestern states from 2014 to 2018, according to data collected by the USA TODAY Network and the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting.” These suicides also “coincide with the near-doubling of calls to a crisis hotline operated by Farm Aid, a nonprofit agency whose mission is to help farmers keep their land.”

Related Links:

— “Midwest farmers face a crisis. Hundreds are dying by suicide, “Katie Wedell, Lucille Sherman and Sky Chadde, USA TODAY, March 9, 2020

Reuters (3/7, Crist) reported that “nearly one in five caregivers who support ill family members or friends describe their own health as fair or poor, according to a new U.S. study” published in the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. In that analysis, researchers found “overall, about one in five participants had provided care to a family member or friend in the previous 30 days, and another 17% expected to become caregivers in the next two years.” The study also discovered “nearly half of unpaid caregivers were under age 45.”

Related Links:

— “Informal caregivers often in poor health themselves, “Carolyn Crist, Reuters, March 7, 2020

Psychiatric News (3/6) reported, “People with a psychotic disorder and opioid use disorder (OUD) are as likely to stay in methadone treatment for OUD as those with other psychiatric disorders,” researchers concluded after analyzing “data from 415 adults with OUD enrolled in community-based outpatient methadone maintenance treatment across Ontario.” The study revealed that “81% of the patients with psychotic disorders remained in treatment for OUD at 12 months, a rate comparable to the 84% of patients with nonpsychotic disorders.” The findings were published online March 2 in the Schizophrenia Bulletin.

Related Links:

— “Patients With and Without Psychotic Disorders Have Similar OUD Treatment Rates, Study Finds, Psychiatric News, March 6, 2020

The Washington Post (3/5, Horton) says that for decades the Department of Veterans Affairs has “unlawfully turned away thousands of veterans with other-than-honorable discharges, rendering some of the most vulnerable veterans invisible and desperate for help, according to a” report (PDF) from the Veterans Legal Clinic at Harvard Law School. The article says that “systemic misunderstanding of the law within VA about which veterans it should care for – and which should be denied services – has triggered improper mass denial of care since 1980, the Veterans Legal Clinic at Harvard Law School said in the study, leaving an estimated 400,000 more at risk of never gaining access to health care they may have earned.”

Related Links:

— “Requires subscription, The Washington Post, March 5, 2020

Healio (3/5, Gramigna) reports, “The current body of research regarding psychedelics has produced insufficient evidence to recommend FDA approval of any psychedelic compound for routine clinical use in psychiatric disorders,” research indicated, but investigators “noted the need to further study the efficacy of psychedelics for treating psychiatric disorders.” Included in the medical literature review study were “14 articles that reported on well-designed clinical trials investigating the efficacy of LSD, MDMA, psilocybin and ayahuasca for the treatment of anxiety and mood disorders, substance-related and addictive disorders, and trauma and stress-related disorders, as well as in end-of-life care.” The findings were published online Feb. 26 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

Related Links:

— “Psychedelics appear promising for treating psychiatric disorders, but more research needed, “Joe Gramigna, Healio, March 5, 2020