Forbes (4/12) contributor Laurel Farrer wrote, “Remote workers often experience symptoms of anxiety and depression at a higher rate than people commuting into traditional office spaces,” research indicated. Even though “in the 2019 State of Remote Work report produced by Buffer…thousands of remote workers surveyed rave about the work-life balance, schedule flexibility, and work performance,” they also list the “downsides of location flexibility.” For example, “49% of remote workers note that their biggest struggle is wellness-related.” For example, the report found that “insomnia and sleep disturbance are common, along with increased fatigue, irritation, sadness and feelings of disconnection.”

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— “Are Home Offices Fueling A Mental Health Crisis?, “Laurel Farrer, Forbes, April 12, 2019

MD Magazine (4/12, Campbell) reported a 347-study review “has identified several risk factors and limitations of past articles that examine physician suicides and its causes.” According to MD Magazine, “unique risks included specialized knowledge, access to lethal methods, and specialties.” Other “less-studied risks included personality traits, adverse childhood events, relationship status with a partner, relationship with parents, economic burdens, religiosity, and cultural upbringing.” The findings were presented at the ACP 2019 Internal Medicine Annual Meeting.

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— “Physician Suicide Remains a Misunderstood Problem, “Patrick Campbell, MD Magazine, April 12, 2019

The New York Times (4/14, Steinhauer) reports, “Three veterans killed themselves last week on Department of Veterans Affairs health care properties, barely a month after President Trump announced an aggressive task force to address the unremitting problem of veteran suicide.” The Times says the “executive order was a tacit acknowledgment of what the deaths rendered obvious: The department has not made a dent in stemming the approximately 20 suicide deaths every day among veterans.” The article adds that “veterans are in many ways an amplification of the same factors that drive suicide in the broader American population: a fragmented health care system, a shortage of mental health resources, especially in rural areas, a lack of funding for suicide research and easy access to guns.”

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— “V.A. Officials, and the Nation, Battle an Unrelenting Tide of Veteran Suicides, ” Jennifer Steinhauer, The New York Times, April 14, 2019

Medscape (4/11, Yasgur, Subscription Publication) reports, “Suicidal ideation (SI) occurs more frequently in adolescents with superior cognitive performance than in youngsters with lower cognition,” researchers concluded after studying “more than 6000 typically developing community-based adolescents aged 11 to 21 years and” then comparing “the cognitive and social functioning of those with and those without SI.” The findings were published online March 28 in the British Journal of Psychiatry.

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— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

Healio (4/10, Demko) reports, “In 2016, past-month daily cannabis use was about three times higher among individuals with serious psychological distress than among those without,” researchers concluded after “using data from the 2008 to 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health” to examine “the prevalence of daily cannabis use among U.S. adults (n=356,413) with and without serious psychological distress, as measured by the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale in 2016, and” then examining “trends in daily cannabis use by past-month psychological distress status from 2008 to 2016.” The findings were published in the April issue of the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

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— “Daily cannabis use more common among people with psychological distress, “Savannah Demko, Healio, April 10, 2019

HealthDay (4/10, Preidt) reports, “People with migraine may be much more likely to attempt suicide than others,” investigators concluded after examining “data on nearly 22,000 Canadians who took part in a 2012 community mental health survey.” The study revealed that one “in 12 adults with migraine had attempted suicide – and those with a history of sexual abuse or long-term exposure to domestic violence had a significantly higher risk.” The findings were published online April 4 in the journal Archives of Suicide Research.

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In a nearly 4,000-word piece, Kaiser Health News (4/9, Bailey, Aleccia) reports that as suicide rates rise across the US, “such deaths among older adults – including the 2.2 million who live in long-term care settings – are often overlooked.” The piece says “a KHN analysis of new data from the University of Michigan suggests that hundreds of suicides by older adults each year – nearly one per day – are related to long-term care.” The piece also states, “Thousands more people may be at risk in those settings, where up to a third of residents report suicidal thoughts, research shows.”

PBS NewsHour (4/9, Wise, Carlson, Nagy) provides the transcript of a recent program reporting in partnership with Kaiser Health News on the risks of suicide among senior citizens. The program featured Julie Rickard, a psychologist at a crisis stabilization center in Wenatchee, Washington, who said that with regard to treatment in long-term care, it is important to consider what professionals are “doing on the backside to make sure that the person is transitioning well when they are going into long-term care, that we are doing the things to support them and stay connected.”

Related Links:

— “Lethal Plans: When Seniors Turn To Suicide , “Melissa Bailey and JoNel Aleccia, Kaiser Health News, April 9, 2019

Reuters (4/8, Rapaport) reports that research suggests that “it’s possible that as many as one in 13 boys in the U.S. have sex before reaching their teens,” but “the chance that they will do this varies widely depending on where they live.” Investigators looked at data from two surveys and found that “overall, 7.6 percent of high school students in the first survey and 3.6 percent of participants in the second survey reported having sex for the first time before age 13.” The study also found that “across cities nationwide, the proportion of boys who reported having sex before age 13 ranged from as small as one in 20 in San Francisco to as large as one in four in Memphis, Tennessee.” The findings were published in JAMA Pediatrics.

Related Links:

— “Up to 1 in 13 boys in U.S. have sex before adolescence, “Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, April 8, 2019