Methylphenidate Use May Be Significantly Associated With Sleep Problems, Several Different Types Of Insomnia, Meta-Analysis Reveals

Healio (5/13, Demko) reports researchers examined 35 studies in a meta-analysis and concluded that “methylphenidate use was significantly associated with sleep problems and several different types of insomnia.” The findings were published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Methylphenidate treatment for ADHD tied to several types of insomnia, “Savannah Demko, Healio, May 13, 2019

Opinion: Insurance Companies Must Provide Coverage For Eating Disorder Treatment

In an opinion piece for The Hill (5/13), National Eating Disorders Association Chief Policy and Strategy Officer Chevese Turner writes that “second to deaths spurred by the opioid crisis, eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric diagnosis,” but “insurance companies resist covering life-saving treatment.” Turner says that “recent landmark court decisions and amendments to state legislation are setting precedent for parity coverage of eating disorders treatment,” but “we need to remain diligent in stoking insurers to provide equal coverage for eating disorders treatment across the country.” Turner concludes, “We must continue pressing insurers through legal action and policy until all Americans…have true coverage of eating disorder treatment.”

Related Links:

— “Mental health coverage needs to include eating disorders, The Hill, May 13, 2019

Safe Storage Of Guns Could Prevent Several Hundred Child Deaths A Year, Researchers Say

In the New York Times (5/13, Carroll) “The Upshot,” Aaron E. Carroll, MD, a professor of pediatrics at the Indiana School of Medicine, writes, “Legislators and gun safety advocates often focus on how guns are” bought, even though “many lives could be saved, especially among children, if they looked more at how they are stored.” Just in the past decade alone, “guns killed more than 14,000 American children.” In new research, investigators have found that “even a modest increase in owners who lock up their guns would pay off in an outsize drop in gun deaths.”

CNN (5/13, Scutti) reports, “US households with children do not safely store firearms in the way the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends: locked up and unloaded.” Were parents simply to lock up “all their guns, then up to a third of gun suicides and accidental deaths among children and teens could be avoided, researchers” estimated. The findings were published online in JAMA Pediatrics.

Related Links:

— “The Potentially Lifesaving Difference in How a Gun Is Stored, “Aaron E. Carroll, The New York Times, May 13, 2019

People With Chronic Illnesses May Have Difficulty Fulfilling Medicaid Work Requirements, Study Indicates

Reuters (5/10, Rapaport) reported that states which “require adults on Medicaid to work a set number of hours to get benefits may find many people lose coverage because behavioral health conditions and other chronic health problems make it hard for them to work,” according to a study published in Health Affairs. Data show only “23 percent of people with serious mental illnesses worked at least 20 hours a week, while only 43 percent of people with substance use disorders achieved this minimum number of work hours.” Among recipients “with both mental illness and substance use issues, only 32 percent worked at least 20 hours a week.” Meanwhile, “almost half of Medicaid enrollees without any identified health problems worked at least 20 hours a week.”

Related Links:

— “Medicaid work rules likely to penalize chronically ill: study, “Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, May 10, 2019

Psoriasis Tied To Mental Illnesses In Two Studies

HealthDay (5/9, Reinberg) reports researchers found in two studies published in JAMA Dermatology that psoriasis “is often coupled with depression, anxiety and even bipolar disease, schizophrenia and dementia.” In one study, “Danish researchers collected data on more than 13,600 men and women with psoriasis,” and “over five years of follow-up, 2.6% developed mental problems, and over 10 years, that number rose to nearly 5%.” In the other study, “Korean researchers looked at more than 12,700 psoriasis patients,” and “found that the risk for anxiety, phantom medical problems, neurotic disorders and sleep problems was doubled and tripled among psoriasis sufferers compared to those without the disease.”

Related Links:

— “Psoriasis, Mental Ills Can Go Hand in Hand, “Steven Reinberg, HealthDay, May 9, 2019

Hallucinations, Delusions Both Facets Of Psychosis, Expert Says

U.S. News & World Report (5/8, Howley) explains what delusions and hallucinations are and how they differ. Hallucinations “are based in the senses,” while “delusions revolve around concepts, ideas and beliefs that are strongly held in the mind.” Psychiatrist Philip R. Muskin, MD, “outgoing secretary of the American Psychiatric Association, describes delusions as ‘a fixed idea that’s not consensually held’ in the person’s culture, and ‘is not consistent with the world at large.’” Both “delusions and hallucinations” are “two facets of psychosis, a condition the National Institute of Mental Health defines as ‘conditions that affect the mind, where there has been some loss of contact with reality.’”

Related Links:

— “What’s the Difference Between Delusions and Hallucinations?, “Elaine K. Howley, U.S. News & World Report, May 8, 2019

White Patients More Likely To Be Prescribed Buprenorphine, Study Says

The Detroit Free Press (5/8, Kovanis) reports on a study published in the JAMA Psychiatry which found that buprenorphine treatment is prescribed 35 times more frequently to white patients. The article says that the findings are “especially interesting because research revealed earlier this year showed a spike in the number of African American deaths tied to fentanyl, the ultra powerful opioid that’s being cut into heroin, cocaine and other drugs.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer (5/8, Whelan) reports that the study examined over 13 million doctors’ visits during which the drug was prescribed from 2012 through 2015, and “found that 12.7 million of those visits were by white patients, compared to just 363,000 for all other races.”

HealthDay (5/8, Preidt) reports that investigators found “a large increase in the overall number of buprenorphine prescriptions written at outpatient clinic visits over the previous decade, but a decrease in the percentage of those visits where the patients were black.”

Related Links:

— “Poor, Minorities Shortchanged on Opioid Addiction Treatments, ” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, May , 2019

US’ Methamphetamine Epidemic Overshadowed By Opioid Epidemic

Kaiser Health News (5/7, Dembosky) reports that methamphetamine use “is surging in parts of the US, particularly the West,” but policymakers “haven’t kept up, continuing to direct the bulk of funding and attention to opioids.” According to UCLA addiction psychologist Steve Shoptaw, stories regarding methamphetamine overdoses “are very much muffled by the much louder story about the opioid epidemic” among congressional lawmakers. Deaths related to methamphetamine use in San Francisco have doubled since 2011, and the city’s meth-related emergency room visits “have jumped 600% to 1,965 visits in 2016, the last year for which ER data is available.”

Related Links:

— “Meth Vs. Opioids: America Has Two Drug Epidemics, But Focuses On One, “April Dembosky, Kaiser Health News, May 7, 2019

Transgender teens face higher risk of sexual assault when schools restrict bathrooms

Reuters (5/6, Rapaport) reports that “transgender adolescents may be less likely to be sexually assaulted when they can use school bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth,” according to a study published online in Pediatrics.

Related Links:

— “Trans teens face higher sexual assault risk when schools restrict bathrooms, “Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, May 6, 2019

More Than A Quarter Of Nurses Experience PTSD, Professor Says

The New York Times (5/7, Lucchesi) reports that “mental health experts now recognize that PTSD can indeed affect nurses, both military and civilian.” Specifically, “as many as 28 percent of nurses experience PTSD at some point in their careers, said Meredith Mealer, an associate professor at the Anschutz Medical Campus at the University of Colorado, Denver, though health care providers still often struggle to treat it.” One “recent study in the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation found as many as 48 percent of nurses working in a critical care transplant unit met the criteria for PTSD symptoms included upsetting dreams about a traumatic event, difficulty falling asleep, irritability or outbursts of anger, and upsetting memories about the event that arose against the person’s will.”

Related Links:

— “For Nurses, Trauma Can Come With the Job, “Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi, The New York Times, May 7, 2019