Reuters (11/14, Rapaport) reports a study published in Pediatrics found that since 1988, “the proportion of middle-income mothers who think physical punishment is appropriate has dropped from 46 percent to 21 percent.” During the same time period, the “share of mothers endorsing time-out surged from 41 percent to 81 percent.” lead study author Rebecca Ryan, a psychology researcher at Georgetown University, explained, “Support for corporal punishment has been falling at least since the 1990s, in part due to social science research that suggests spanking is linked to negative outcomes for children like delinquency, antisocial behavior, psychological problems, and alcohol and drug abuse.” She added that there is “little evidence” to support that “spanking or other forms of physical discipline are effective in the long term at reducing unwanted child behaviors or encouraging children to internalize – to really believe in – parents’ rules.”

Related Links:

— “Fewer U.S. parents say they spank their kids,”Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, November 14, 2016.

Kaiser Health News (11/14, Luthra) reports on community paramedics who are trained to help “psychiatric patients in need of care avoid winding up in the emergency room, where they can get ‘boarded’ for days, until they are released or a bed frees up at an inpatient facility.” After being dispatched to a scene with a patient with a potential mental health crisis, paramedics talk to the patient about “what, precisely, the issue is, asking also about issues like a patient’s mental health history, drug use and insurance status.” The information is used to determine “the next steps for the patient — maybe it is a hospital or a psych facility, or maybe it is outpatient care.” The pilot program of specialized paramedics was launched in Modesto a year ago, and “similar projects are also underway in North Carolina, Minnesota, Texas, Colorado and Georgia.”

Related Links:

— “Community Paramedics Work To Link Patients With Mental Health Care,”Shefali Luthra, Kaiser Health News, November 14, 2016.

Reuters (11/14, Rapaport) reports a recent study published online Nov. 14 in the journal Pediatrics suggests the number of US teenagers and young adults with untreated depression is increasing. The study found the prevalence of depression in youth ages 12 to 17 increased from 8.7 percent in 2005 to 11.3 percent in 2014. The prevalence of depression among adults aged 18 to 25 increased from 8.8 percent to 9.6 percent during the time span. Yet the study also found “there hasn’t been much change in the proportion of teens and young adults seeking mental health treatment.”

CNN (11/14, Howard) reports Dr. Mark Olfson, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center and a co-author of the study, said, “The new study highlights that most adolescents with depression do not receive treatment for their symptoms and underscores the need for increased attention to this condition.” Using data from the National Surveys on Drug Use and Health, researchers “discovered that the prevalence of major depressive episodes over a 12-month period increased among girls from about 13% in 2005 to about 17% in 2014.” Comparatively, depression in boys increased from about 4 percent in 2005 to 6 percent in 2014. Cyberbullying and interpersonal stress are cited as reasons why girls are at a greater risk for depression.

HealthDay (11/14, Mozes) reports that in an editorial accompanying the study, Dr. Anne Glowinski, director of child and adolescent psychiatry education and training at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, wrote, “There are many stressors which impact our youth….These stressors are not limited to social media and/or cyberbullying.” These may include economic factors, anxiety about the future, neighborhood violence, and, “yes, one of those things could be social media or even something not on the radar, like an increase in sleep deprivation related to excessive Internet use,” according to Glowinski.

Related Links:

— “Depression becoming more common among U.S. teens,”Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, November 14, 2016.

A more than 5,000-word New York Times (11/13, A1, Fink, Subscription Publication) analysis examines mental healthcare for detainees at Guantánamo Bay, saying that the “United States defends the quality of mental health care” at the prison as “humane and appropriate,” while “Detainees, human rights groups and doctors consulting for defense teams offer more critical assessments, describing it as negligent or ineffective in many cases.” The article highlights Lt. Cmdr. Shay Rosecrans tenure at Guantánamo, a Navy officer who “led one of the mental health teams” at the prison “over the past 15 years.” The Times notes psychiatrists and psychologists assigned to the prison “received little training for the assignment” and often reported feeling “unprepared to tend to men they were told were ‘the worst of the worst.’”

Related Links:

— “Where Even Nightmares Are Classified:
Psychiatric Care at Guantánamo,”Sheri Fink, The New York Times, November 13, 2016.

In a nearly 2,000-word piece titled “How Can I Afford Mental Health Care?,” the New York Magazine (11/11, Cowles) quoted Harsh Trivedi, MD, chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s Council on Healthcare Systems and Financing, who said, “Of all Americans who are clinically depressed and need help, less than half of them are diagnosed, let alone get any kind of help for it.” Dr. Trivedi added, “Of those who do get diagnosed with clinical depression, only about 30 percent get sufficient treatment to return to their normal functioning,” a “low percentage” that “has a lot to do with lack of access to care and not being able to use your health benefits to cover it.”

Related Links:

— “How Can I Afford Mental Health Care?,”Charlotte Cowles, The New York Magazine, November 11, 2016.

CNN (11/11, Ravitz) reported that last Tuesday’s election results have resulted in an “unexpected flood of calls to crisis and suicide prevention services.”

The Christian Science Monitor (11/13, Hoover) reported, “Following Mr. Trump’s victory, services like the National Suicide Prevention Hotline, the Crisis Text Line, and the Trevor Project, which focuses on helping LGBTQ youth, fielded hundreds or thousands of inquiries from Americans who feared they might lose health care and civil rights under a Trump administration, or” encounter “additional harassment from a sect of his increasingly vocal and radical supporters.”

Related Links:

— “Calls to crisis and suicide prevention hotlines surge post-election,”Jessica Ravitz, CNN, November 11, 2016.

Healio (11/11, Oldt) reported, “Fewer daylight hours between sunrise and sunset was associated with poorer mental health,” researchers found after studying “19 weather and pollution variables with self-reported mental health data for university students participating in mental health treatment (n = 16,452).” The findings were published in the November issue of the Journal of Affective Disorders.

Related Links:

— “Less daylight may lead to poorer mental health, Healio, November 11, 2016.

Reuters (11/10, Doyle) reports that researchers have found that “during pregnancy, women and their male partners sometimes report insomnia or insufficient sleep, which may be tied to depression.” Nearly “half of women reported that they slept more than usual during pregnancy, but did not have better quality sleep, said senior author Tiina Paunio.” The investigators found that “overall, 12 percent of women and 15 percent of men had either insomnia or too little sleep.” The findings were published online in Sleep Medicine.

Related Links:

— “Insomnia, poor sleep quality common for men and women during pregnancy,” Kathryn Doyle, Reuters, November 10, 2016.

The Huffington Post (11/9, Schumaker) reports a study published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research reviewed 17 studies concerning the effects of alcohol policies on suicide rates, finding “that polices like alcohol taxation, limiting the number of stores that sell alcohol in a given area, increasing minimum drinking ages and restricting hours for alcohol sales were associated with lower suicide rates.” Study author Ziming Xuan said, “If one can reduce the average alcohol consumption in a population level, then ideally we can shift the [suicide] risk at a population level.”

Related Links:

— “How Little-Known Tax Laws Could Drive Down Our Suicide Rate,”Erin Schumaker, The Huffington Post, November 9, 2016.

HealthDay (11/8, Norton) reports that over the past 10 years, “‘self-harm’ has been the leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths in Colorado,” researchers found after examining maternal death records in that state between 2004 and 2012, including “both deaths during a pregnancy or in the year afterward.” In fact, “of all 211 maternal deaths in Colorado between 2004 and 2012, 30 percent were attributed to self-harm,” including “suicides and…overdoses – most often in the year after a woman gave birth,” the study revealed.

Related Links:

— “Self-Harm a Cause of Death During Pregnancy and for New Moms,”Amy Norton, HealthDay, November 8, 2016.