Healio (6/5, Gramigna) reported, “Quetiapine may need a new” boxed warning “because of its association with prolonged and sometimes painful erections known as priapism,” investigators concluded in a poster presentation at the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology Annual Meeting (virtual). The article did not mention how many people were included in the case study.

Related Links:

— “Risk for prolonged erection may warrant new black box warning for quetiapine, researchers say, “Joe Gramigna, Healio, June 5, 2020

The Washington Post (6/7, Cha, Guarino, Wan) reports physicians, “nurses and emergency medical technicians are supposed to be the superheroes of the pandemic.” However, “many confide that the past months have left them feeling lost, alone, unable to sleep.” In addition, “they second-guess their decisions, experience panic attacks, worry constantly about their patients, their families and themselves, and feel tremendous anxiety about how and when this might end.”

Related Links:

— “The Washington Post, (Requires Subscription)

The New York Times (6/5, Goldberg) reported the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted treatment for many people with eating disorders, and the social isolation and changes in routine have added to the anxiety that many of these patients experience. The New York Times adds, “Roughly one in 10 Americans struggle with disordered eating, and the pandemic has created new hurdles for those managing difficult relationships with food.”

Related Links:

— “Disordered Eating in a Disordered Time, “Emma Goldberg, The New York Times, June 5, 2020

The New York Times (6/3, Bakalar) reports, “Women who take benzodiazepines…before becoming pregnant may be at increased risk for ectopic pregnancy,” researchers concluded after using “an insurance database of 1,691,366 pregnancies to track prescriptions for benzodiazepines in the 90 days before conception.” The study revealed that such “women were 47 percent more likely to have a tubal pregnancy than those who did not.” The findings were published online June 3 in the journal Human Reproduction.

Also providing similar coverage are MedPage Today (6/3, D’Ambrosio), MD Magazine (6/3, Rosenfeld) and HealthDay (6/3, Gordon).

Related Links:

— “Benzodiazepines Tied to Higher Risk of Ectopic Pregnancy, “Nicholas Bakalar, The New York Times , June 3, 2020

The New York Times (6/3, Carey) reports that first-time gun ownership “raises the purchasers’ risk of deliberately shooting themselves by ninefold on average, with the danger most acute in the weeks after purchase,” researchers concluded in “the largest analysis to date tracking individual, first-time gun owners and suicide for more than a decade.” What’s more, “the risk remains elevated for years,” investigators found after tracking “nearly 700,000 first-time handgun buyers, year by year, and” then comparing “them with similar non-owners, breaking out risk by gender.”

HealthDay (6/3, Norton) reports the study concluded that “male handgun owners had an eight times higher risk, versus other men; the risk soared 35-fold among female gun owners, compared with other women.” The latter “partly reflects the fact that women generally have a low rate of suicide by gun, said lead researcher David Studdert,” LLB, ScD. Studdert also “said, men accounted for the large majority of firearm suicides during the study period, at 83%.” The findings were published in the June 4 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Related Links:

— “First-Time Gun Owners at Risk for Suicide, Major Study Confirms, “Benedict Carey, The New York Times, June 3, 2020

Psychiatric News (6/3) reports, “Rates of seclusion and restraint at American hospitals, including psychiatric hospitals, fell between 2013 and 2017, at least among those with the highest rates,” research indicated. What’s more, “for-profit hospitals appear to use seclusion and restraint much less than nonprofit and government-owned facilities,” investigators found after examining “rates of seclusion and restraint at 1,642 acute care and psychiatric facilities using the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Hospital Compare website,” then comparing “three types of hospitals – for-profit, nonprofit, and government-owned.” The findings were published online June 3 in Psychiatric Services, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

Related Links:

— “Use of Seclusion, Restraint in Hospitals Drops, But Better Data Needed to Get Complete Picture, Psychiatric News, June 3, 2020

Medscape (6/2, Harrison, Subscription Publication) reports, “People with diabetic retinopathy experience depression at higher rates than the general population, but the rate decreases at the most severe stage of the disease,” investigators concluded after analyzing “a database of 95,575 people 18 years and older with eye exams on record at the Carolina Data Warehouse, a repository of all patients seen in the University of North Carolina system.” The findings were presented in a virtual presentation at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology 2020 Annual Meeting.

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

MD Magazine (6/2, Walter) reports, “Cannabis use is associated with poorer mental health outcomes, with evidence showing the use of higher-potency cannabis increasing these risks,” researchers concluded after examining “whether high-potency cannabis compared to low-potency cannabis increases the risk of problems resulting from cannabis use, common mental disorders, and psychotic experiences after controlling for early-life mental health symptoms and frequency of use.” The findings of the 1,087-individual study revealed that “use of high-potency cannabis was linked to a significant increase in the frequency of cannabis use,” as well as “cannabis problems…and increased likelihood of anxiety disorder.” What’s more, those “who use high-potency cannabis had a slight increase in likelihood of psychotic experiences…tobacco dependence,” and use of other illicit drugs. The findings were published online May 27 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “High-Potency Cannabis Linked to Poor Mental Health, “Kenny Walter, MD Magazine, June 2, 2020

MD Magazine (6/2, Walter) reports researchers have “established how loneliness and disease containment measures” in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic “could impact the mental health of both children and adolescents.” For “the rapid review, the investigators examined articles published between 1946-2020, with 20% of articles double screened using a predefined criteria and 20% of data double extracted for quality assurance.” The review revealed that “social isolation and loneliness increased the risk of depression, as well as the possibility of anxiety at the time of loneliness, which was measured between 0.25-9 years later.” What’s more, the review found that “young people were as much as three times more likely to develop depression in the future due to social isolation, with the impact of loneliness on mental health lasting up to nine years later.” The findings (pdf) were published online in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “COVID-19 Lockdown Having an Impact on Adolescent Mental Health, “Kenny Walter, MD Magazine, June 2, 2020

The Hill (6/1, Hellmann) reports the FDA “is reporting shortages of Zoloft [sertraline] and the generic version of the antidepressant as demand soars and supply chains for key ingredients are interrupted by the pandemic.” Pfizer told the agency “it has a limited supply [of Zoloft] available of the 100-count bottles of 100-milligram pills due to” an increase in demand, and other manufacturers reported shortages of generic versions.

Bloomberg (6/1, Edney) reports, “Zoloft prescriptions climbed 12% year-over-year to 4.9 million in March, the most ever in the U.S., according to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence.”

Related Links:

— “Zoloft shortages reported amid increased demand, strained supply lines, “Jessie Hellmann, The Hill, June 1, 2020