The Huffington Post (11/20, Kingkade) reports that the Higher Education Mental Health Alliance this week issued “a first-of-its-kind ‘Postvention Guide’ to help colleges respond to suicides on campus.” The guide, which is “available for free online…includes information for counselors, deans, faculty and reporters.” Among the professional groups that worked to help develop this guide is the American Psychiatric Association.

Related Links:

— “Mental Health Group Releases Guide For Colleges Dealing With Suicides,” Tyler Kingkade, Huffington Post, November 19, 2014.

See the guide here: Postvention: A Guide for Response to Suicide on College Campuses

HealthDay (11/26, Preidt) reports that according to a study published online in the journal Development and Psychopathology, children “who enter puberty early are at increased risk for depression.” The four-year, 160-participant study tied early puberty to “a number of factors associated with depression, such as poor self-image and high anxiety levels.” In addition, early puberty was associated with “social problems, such as conflict with family and peers, and having friends who were prone to getting into trouble.”

Related Links:

— “Early Puberty Linked to Increased Risk of Depression in Teens,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, November 24, 2014.

The Fox News (11/25) website reports that according to a study by University of Michigan School of Nursing and published in the journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, adolescents “prescribed sleep and anti-anxiety [medications] may be up to 12 times more likely to abuse them compared to teens who have never received these prescriptions.” Investigators arrived at that conclusion after surveying “more than 2,700 middle and high school students online from the Detroit area twice annually from 2009 to 2012.” The study authors suggested that “substance abuse assessments, in addition to strict limitations on prescription refills, may help reduce the number of teens that abuse prescription” medicines. The piece also points out that a 2011 survey conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that three percent of US teens abuse sleep and anti-anxiety medicines.

Related Links:

— “Abuse of sleep, anti-anxiety drugs a growing issue among teenagers, study shows,” Fox News, November 24, 2014.

Huffington Post (11/25, Gregoire) reports that a study published in the journal Social Science and Medicine examined the growing rate of diagnoses of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) “in five countries where AD/HD diagnosis and treatment rates increased dramatically – the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Brazil.” The study suggested that “while AD/HD has been medicalized in the US since the 1960s, other countries have been slower to medicalize the condition.” However, “it wasn’t until the 1990s…that AD/HD diagnosis and treatment migrated from North America to be increasingly applied internationally.”

Related Links:

— “Worldwide ADHD Rates Are Higher Than Ever, And It Might Be America’s Fault,” Carolyn Gregoire, Huffington Post, November 24, 2014.

Bloomberg News (11/24, Cortez) reports that according to a study published Nov. 23 in The Lancet Psychiatry, “a handful of counseling sessions for people who tried to kill themselves significantly reduced the chances they would make another attempt.” After analyzing data on some 65,000 Danes who tried to commit suicide during the 1992 to 2010 time frame, researchers “found six to 10 sessions of talk therapy reduced suicide attempts by 27 percent and deaths by 38 percent in just one year.” What’s more, “the benefits lasted as long as two decades, they found.” BBC News (11/24) also covers the study.

Related Links:

— “Counseling Shown to Reduce Repeat Attempts at Suicide,” Michelle Fay Cortez, Bloomberg News, November 24, 2014.

The Dallas Morning News (11/24, Yasmin) reports on the rise and fall of suicide rates as they relate to the economy, saying that “suicide rates have spiked during every recession since the Great Depression and have dropped during times of economic growth.” Additionally, several studies have indicated a “relationship between a bad economy and higher rates of suicide, especially among men.” For example, for every rise of one percent in unemployment between 2008 and 2010, “there was a one percent increase in the suicide rate. The state with the strongest correlation between unemployment and suicide was Texas.”

Related Links:

— “Suicide rates rise and fall with economy, especially in Texas,” Seema Yasmin, Dallas Morning News, November 23, 2014.

MedPage Today (11/22, Johnson) reported that according to research presented at the American College of Rheumatology’s annual meeting, patients with gout may “face a lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD) compared with people without gout.” Researchers arrived at that conclusion after using “data from The Health Improvement Network (THIN), an electronic medical records database representative of the UK general population,” to identify “59,224 individuals with gout (70.8% male, mean age 65.3 years) and matched them to 238,805 controls without gout (71.1% male, mean age 65.3 years) based on age, sex, body mass index, date of study entry, and year of enrollment.” After adjustment for confounding factors, “the multivariate hazard ratio of AD among those with gout was 0.76 (95% CI 0.66 to 0.87), translating to a 24% lower risk of AD among people with a history of gout compared to those without.”

Related Links:

— “Gout May Protect Against Alzheimer’s Disease,” Kate Johnson, MedPage Today, November 21, 2014.

The Washington Post (11/21, Holley, Larimer) “Post Nation” blog reported that in wake of Thursday morning’s shooting at the Florida State University library, experts are once again debating the fairness of the connection between gun violence and serious mental illness. Earlier this year, in a piece run by Psychiatric News, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association, Thomas Insel, MD, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, discussed that very issue in a keynote address at a workshop on mental health and violence conducted by the Institute of Medicine, putting the issue in perspective and reiterating that the vast majority of people with mental illnesses are not violent, nor are most violent acts perpetrated by people with mental illnesses.

Related Links:

— “In wake of Florida State shooting, spotlight returns to mental health issues and violence,” Peter Holley and Sarah Larimer, Washington Post, November 21, 2014.

Pew Charitable Trusts (11/19) reports on a new Federal rule that “will require states to ensure that long-term care alternatives to nursing homes work with residents and their families to develop individual care plans specifying the services and setting each resident wants,” with the goal of creating a “home-like atmosphere” within assisted living facilities. However, “the rule could make it difficult for [physicians] to fulfill increasing demand for long-term care outside of nursing homes,” and “could limit the availability of services for elders,” while bringing unintended consequences, according to Pew. For example, patients with dementia who are not likely to wander off should not face constraints such as locked doors under the new rule, but this guideline becomes complicated when multiple dementia patients share living space and some are at risk for wandering and some are not.

Related Links:

— “New Medicaid Rule Could Challenge State Shift Away From Nursing Homes,” Christine Vestal, Pew Charitable Trusts, November 19, 2014.

HealthDay (11/21, Preidt) reports that according to a report issued by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and based on the agency’s annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health, “nearly one in five American adults – 43.8 million people – had a diagnosable mental illness in 2013.” In addition, the report revealed “10 million adults had a serious mental illness, 15.7 million had major depressive episodes, 9.3 million had serious thoughts of suicide, 2.7 million made suicide plans and 1.3 million attempted suicide.” In a news release, SAMHSA Administrator Pamela Hyde said, “It is a serious issue that millions of Americans are needlessly affected by mental illness when they can get effective treatment to restore their well-being.” Hyde emphasized the importance of seeking help.

Related Links:

— “1 in 5 U.S. Adults Dealt With a Mental Illness in 2013,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, November 20, 2014.