Healio (2/13, Gramigna) reports, “Individuals with depression, especially men, may be at increased risk for all-cause and” cardiovascular disease (CVD) “mortality,” investigators concluded after following 512,712 “adults aged 30 to 79 years who were included in the China Kadoorie Bank (CKB) study, as well as” 26,298 “adults aged 32 to 104 years who were included in the Dongfeng-Tongji (DFTJ) study.” The findings were published online Feb. 12 in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Researchers find more evidence for link between depression and all-cause, CVD mortality, “Joe Gramigna, Healio, February 13, 2020

Psychiatric News (2/13) reports, “Psychiatric medications do not appear to interfere with weight loss in” patients with obesity “who have had bariatric surgery,” investigators concluded after analyzing “data on 190 patients who had bariatric surgery,” 61 of whom “were taking psychiatric medications before surgery, and 50” who “continued taking psychiatric medications one year after surgery.” The findings were published in the January/February issue of Psychosomatics, the journal of the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Psychiatric Medications Not Associated With Poorer Weight Loss Following Bariatric Surgery, Psychiatric News, February 13, 2020

TIME (2/12, Oaklander) reports on “Mental Health First Aid at Work, a training that the National Council for Behavioral Health provides, for a cost, to a growing number of corporations.” The article follows the experiences of some employees of Delta Air Lines who took the training in order to learn how to “spot symptoms and warning signs of possible mental health concerns in a colleague, reach out and offer initial help, then guide them to professional help and the resources the company offers, like short-term counseling through the free employee assistance program (EAP) and a confidential app that lets you chat immediately with behavioral health coaches.” Such mental health training is growing among organizations. For example, “the Center for Workplace Mental Health at the American Psychiatric Association Foundation is developing a digital training for managers called ‘Notice. Talk. Act. at Work,’ which teaches the early warning signs of mental health issues and how to have empathetic, compassionate conversations.”

Related Links:

— “How Companies Teach Their Employees First Aid for Mental Health, “Mandy Oaklander, TIME, February 12, 2020

MedPage Today (2/12, Hlavinka) reports, “Men who closely aligned with masculinity norms were more than twice as likely to die by suicide as men who did not,” research indicated. For the study, investigators identified “20,745 adolescents recruited in 1995 as part of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health),” then “matched with death records in 2014.” The study revealed that “‘high-traditional masculinity’ men – or those with at least a 73% probability of being male based on their responses to questions about things like not crying, physical fitness, and fighting – were more likely to die by suicide than men who did not identify as strongly with such norms.” At the same time, “so-called high-traditional masculinity men were also 1.45 times less likely to report suicidal ideation.” The findings were published online Feb. 12 in a research letter in JAMA Psychiatry. Healio (2/12, Gramigna) also covers the study.

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

Healio (2/11, Gramigna) reports, “Risk reduction through family therapy, or RRFT, among adolescents resulted in within-group improvements in substance use problems and PTSD symptoms compared with treatment as usual,” researchers concluded in a study that randomized a “total of 61 participants…to RRFT and 63 to treatment as usual.” The findings were published online Feb. 5 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Adolescent exposure-based treatment safe, feasible for co-occurring substance abuse, PTSD symptoms, “Joe Gramigna, Healio, February 11, 2020

Healio (2/11, Gramigna) reports, “Shorter sleep duration among children was associated with increased risk for depression, anxiety, impulsive behavior and poor cognitive performance,” investigators concluded after examining “data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, which included structural MRI data from 11,067 individuals aged 9 to 11 years.” The findings were published online Feb. 3 in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Children with less sleep experience increased depression, anxiety, decreased cognitive performance, “Joe Gramigna, Healio, February 11, 2020

CNN (2/11, Lamotte) reports that a study published in Lancet Psychiatry suggests that “even light exercise may help protect children against developing depression.” The study “found that 60 minutes of simple movement each day at age 12 was linked to an average 10% reduction in depression at age 18,” with the types of movement ranging “from running and biking to walking, doing chores, painting or playing an instrument.”

HealthDay (2/11, Preidt) reports in the study, “more than 4,200 participants in England wore devices that tracked their movement for at least 10 hours over at least three days when they were ages 12, 14 and 16.”

Related Links:

— “Keep your teen moving to reduce risk of depression, study says, “Sandee LaMotte, CNN, February 11, 2020

HealthDay (2/10, Mundell) reports, “Smartphones, and being on Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok and the like may be taking a big toll on teens’ mental health,” investigators concluded after poring “over dozens of studies.” The findings of the multi-study analysis were published online Feb. 10 in CMAJ.

Related Links:

— “More Evidence Links Social Media Use to Poorer Mental Health in Teens, “E.J. Mundell, HealthDay , February 10, 2020

Reuters (2/10, Rapaport) reports, “Youth suicide rates are dropping in the U.S., but the proportion of teens who have suicidal thoughts or make an attempt remains consistently higher among sexual minorities than among heterosexual young people,” research indicated.

MedPage Today (2/10, Hlavinka) reports, “Substantial recent increases in the percentage of teens and young adults reporting they are not heterosexual were accompanied by a decline in suicide attempts among sexual minority youth,” investigators concluded after examining “survey data” derived from “Massachusetts high schoolers who participated in the federal Youth Risk Behavioral Surveillance Survey” for the years 2009 to 2017. Specifically, those data revealed that “the proportion of adolescents disclosing a minority sexual orientation in 2017 was 14.3%, up from 7.3% in 2009,” while “during the same period, suicide attempts declined among sexual minority as well as heterosexual youth.” Even so, “sexual minorities were still significantly more likely than heterosexual youth to attempt suicide in every year of the study,” research revealed. The findings were published online Feb. 10 in Pediatrics.

Related Links:

— “Suicide rates fall among sexual-minority youth but still outpace heterosexual peers, “Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, February 10, 2020

Medscape (2/10, Yasgur, Subscription Publication) reports, “A national shortage of psychiatric services means a growing number of US emergency departments (ED) are turning to telepsychiatry to fill a critical treatment gap,” data indicate. After surveying “over 5300 EDs,” researchers “found that 20% of those that responded to the survey were utilizing telepsychiatry services, especially in high-volume EDs, those located in rural areas, and those designated as critical access hospitals.” Next, “a second survey of 95 EDs conducted by the same group found that for the majority, telepsychiatry was the only form of emergency psychiatry services, with one quarter receiving such services at least once a day – especially in admission or discharge decisions and transfer coordination.” The authors concluded this suggests that “telepsychiatry fills a critical role by enabling many EDs to access emergency psychiatric services.” The findings were published online Feb. 5 in Psychiatric Services, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

Related Links:

— “Telepsychiatry Filling a Critical Gap in US Emergency Care, “Batya Swift Yasgur, Medscape, February 10, 2020