Healio (12/28, Oldt) reports, “Lower IQ was associated with past-year fear and distress disorders and was not associated with” post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), “anxiety or eating disorders,” researchers found after analyzing “a national sample of adolescents from the 2001 to 2004 National comorbidity Survey Replication-Adolescent Supplement (n = 10,073; mean age, 15.2 years).” After adjusting for confounding factors, investigators found that “mean IQ was lower among adolescents with past-year bipolar disorder (P = .004), AD/HD (P = .002), oppositional defiant disorder (P = .007), conduct disorder (P = .02), alcohol abuse (P < .001), drug abuse (P = .02) and specific phobia (P = .001).” The findingswere published online Dec. 28 in JAMA Psychiatry. Related Links:

— “Lower IQ found in some adolescent psychiatric disorders ,”Amanda Oldt, Healio, December 28, 2016.

The New York Daily News (12/27, Dziemianowicz) reports that healthcare spending on children increased 56 percent between 1996 and 2013, researchpublished online Dec. 27 in JAMA Pediatrics. The “three conditions with the most health care spending were inpatient well-newborn care ($27.9 billion), attention- deficit/hyperactivity disorder…($20.6 billion) and well-dental care ($18.2 billion).”

HealthDay (12/27, Reinberg) reports the author of an editorial accompanying the study wrote that healthcare spending on youngsters, albeit “relatively low,” has “led to better access to care and even some better long-term outcomes for children.”

Related Links:

— “Kids’ health care costs on the rise,”Joe Dziemianowicz, The New York Daily News , December 27, 2016.

Healio (12/27, Oldt) reports post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) “was common among women receiving mindfulness therapy for depression at an urban federally qualified health center, suggesting an association between trauma and residing in a disadvantaged neighborhood,” researchers found after assessing “72 women receiving a mindfulness-based intervention for depression at an urban federally qualified health center.” The findings were published online Dec. 6 in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities.

Related Links:

— “Study Suggests link between violence, depression, PSTD,”Amanda Oldt, Healio, December 27, 2016.

The Boston Globe (12/27, Fernandes) reports that “the US job exodus parallels an increase in suicides,” research suggests. In fact “a one percentage point increase in unemployment correlated with an 11 percent increase in suicides, according to Peter Schott, a Yale University economist who coauthored the report with Justin Pierce, a researcher at the Federal Reserve Board.” The study authors theorize that “workers who lost their jobs may have been pushed over the edge and turned to suicide or drug addiction, lacking financial resources or community connections to get help.”

Related Links:

— “As jobs left the US, suicides rose,” Deirdre Fernandes, The Boston Globe, December 27, 2016.

Healio (12/22, Oldt) reported that two or more of certain behaviors may predict “suicide attempts in public transit stations, suggesting that observing” closed-circuit television (CCTV) “monitors may identify individuals at risk for attempting suicide.” Behaviors that may predict suicide attempts include “leaving objects on the platform, frequently looking down the tunnel, standing for long periods of time on the yellow line or continually walking on the yellow line, looking physically agitated, staring at the tracks or the tunnel for long periods of time and seeming depressed.” The findings, which pooled the results of two small studies, were published online Dec. 15 in BMC Public Health.

Related Links:

— “CCTV may identify individuals at risk suicide,”Amanda Oldt, Healio, December 22, 2016.

NPR (12/21, Hamilton) reports that a study published in Neurology suggests that “sleep quality and brain function improved in tandem” for patients “hospitalized for moderate to severe traumatic brain injuries.” According to NPR, “the results raise the possibility that patients with brain injuries might recover more quickly if hospitals took steps to restore normal sleep patterns.”

Related Links:

— “As Sleep Improves, So Does An Injured Brain,”Jon Hamilton, NPR, December 21, 2016.

The Boston Globe (12/21, Freyer) reports the “brain abnormalities that cause dyslexia may be deeper and more pervasive than previously thought,” according to a new study published in the journal Neuron. Researchers found that “neural adaptation was reduced” in people with dyslexia “even in tasks unrelated to reading, suggesting that dyslexia affects many brain regions, not just those involved with language.”

HealthDay (12/21, Norton) reports the researchers used brain imaging technology and found that adults and children with dyslexia demonstrated “less ability to ‘adapt’ to sensory information,” not just written words, compared to people without dyslexia.

Related Links:

— “Study suggests dyslexics suffer from less brain plasticity,”Felice J. Freyer, The Boston Globe, December 21, 2016.

Medical Daily (12/21, Drain) reports research suggests that “around two-thirds of women with anorexia nervosa or bulimia will eventually recover.” Investigators arrived at this conclusion after analyzing data on “246 participants for more than 20 years.” The findingswere published online Dec. 20 in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

Psychiatric News (12/21) reports that even though “‘for most patients with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, recovery is durable, we found that 10.5% of those with anorexia nervosa and 20.5% of those with bulimia nervosa who achieved recovery in the first decade had relapsed at long-term follow-up,’ the authors wrote.”

Related Links:

— “Will I Have Anorexia Or Bulimia My Whole Life? Eating Disorders Study Says Most Women Recover,”Kelsey Drain, Medical Daily, December 21, 2016.

The AP (12/20, Tanner) reports that a study published in JAMA indicates that physical activity may help children recover from concussions. Researchers “surveyed about 2,400 kids aged 5 to 18 treated for concussions in nine emergency departments in Canada.” They found that “a month after their concussions, ongoing or worse symptoms were more common in children and teens who were inactive during the week following injury, compared with those who engaged in physical activity during that first week.” Their findings “were similar even among those who early on had three or more concussion symptoms.”
Additional coverage is provided by HealthDay (12/20, Doheny) and MedPage Today (12/20, Basen).

Related Links:

— “Association Between Early Participation in Physical Activity Following Acute Concussion and Persistent Postconcussive Symptoms in Children and Adolescents,The JAMA Network, December 20, 2016.

HealthDay (12/20, Preidt) reports researchers at Ohio State University found that “student were far more likely to engage in a violent act if a friend has also done so.” Researchers collected data in “the mid-1990s from more than 5,900 seventh- through 12th-graders at 142 U.S. schools” and found that “youths were 48 percent more likely to be in a serious fight and 140 percent more likely to pull a weapon on someone if a friend had done the same.” Youths were also “up to 183 percent more likely to injure someone badly, the researchers said.” The findings were published online Dec. 20 in the American Journal of Public Health.

Related Links:

— “Teen Violence Can Be Contagious, Study Contends,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, December 20, 2016.