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

CNN (2/8, Kaur) reported a study published in Anesthesia and Analgesia suggests “women who have general anesthesia during C-sections are significantly more likely to experience severe post-partum depression resulting in hospitalization, suicidal thoughts or self-harm.” The study examined over 400,000 cases of cesarean delivery from 2006 to 2013 and showed 8% received general anesthesia during the procedure. Among those women, 3% “experienced severe postpartum depression that required hospitalization.” Moreover, they “were also 54% more likely to experience postpartum depression and 91% more likely to have thoughts about suicide or self-harm, compared to those who had regional anesthesia such as spinal blocks or epidurals.”

Related Links:

— “Women who have general anesthesia during C-sections are more likely to experience postpartum depression, study finds, “Harmeet Kaur, CNN, February 8, 2020

The AP (2/8, Burns) reported researchers found that “suicides in the active-duty Air Force surged last year to the highest total in at least three decades, even as the other military services saw their numbers stabilize or decline.” The article added, “The reasons for the Air Force increase are not fully understood, coming after years of effort by all of the military services to counter a problem that seems to defy solution and that parallels increases in suicide in the U.S. civilian population.”

Related Links:

— “Air Force suicides surged last year to highest in 3 decades, “Robert Burns, AP, February 8, 2020

MedPage Today (2/7, George) reported researchers found that “people who had three or more adverse childhood experiences – physical or psychological abuse, family psychopathology, or loss of a parent – had twice the risk of developing dementia in later years as other older adults, even after taking into account economic hardship, demographics, education, and nutritional environment.” The findings were published in JAMA Network Open

Related Links:

— “Adverse Childhood Events Tied to Dementia, “Judy George, MedPage Today, February 7, 2020

Psychiatric News (2/7) reported, “Family conflict and low parental supervision are associated with suicidality in children, according to a study published today in JAMA Network Open.” The research showed that “overall, 6.4% of the children had a lifetime history of passive suicidal ideation; 4.4% had nonspecific active suicidal ideation; 2.4% had active ideation with a method, intent, or plan; 1.3% had a past suicide attempts; and 9.1% had a NSSI.”

Healio (2/7) reported that “according to the researchers, little is known about suicidal behaviors and ideation in children,” and “to address this research gap, they assessed the overall prevalence of suicide attempts, suicidal ideation and nonsuicidal self-injury, as well as family-related factors associated with self-injury and suicidality, among 11,814 participants aged 9 to 10 years of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study.”

Medscape (2/7, Swift, Subscription Publication) also reported.

Related Links:

— “Family Conflict, Low Parental Supervision Risk Factors for Suicidality in Children, Study Finds, Psychiatric News, February 7, 2020