NBC Nightly News (5/8, story 10, 0:40, Williams) reported that research suggests that “being angry, having frequent arguments with spouses or partners or relatives or neighbors may boost the risk of death from any cause and especially for those in middle age.”

USA Today (5/9, Painter) reports that for the study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, investigators “asked nearly 10,000 men and women ages 36 to 52 how often they ‘experience conflict’ with partners, children, other family members, friends and neighbors.” The researchers “also asked about worries and demands in those relationships.” The investigators “checked death records 11 years later and found that frequent fighters were two to three times more likely than their more peaceable peers to be dead already – even if their fights were mostly with neighbors, not friends or family.”

Related Links:

— “Study: Frequent fighters more likely to die in mid-life,” Kim Painter, USA Today, May 8, 2014.

In its “Shots” blog and on its “All Things Considered” program, NPR (5/9, Cohen) reports that 18 of 107 police officers in Fairfield, CT, have been “specifically trained to respond to mental health calls.” The officers are part of a mental-health crisis intervention program implemented in 2011. Across the US, only about 2,700 such programs exist, even though there are some 18,000 US law enforcement jurisdictions. On May 7, Connecticut legislators approved a measure “ensuring that all police in the state can get some kind of” mental-health crisis intervention training.

Related Links:

— “Mental Health 101: Program Helps Police Intervene In Crises,” Michael Cohen, National Public Radio, May 8, 2014.

In continuing coverage, USA Today (5/9, Szabo) reports that last “December, Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., introduced the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act.” This past Tuesday, however, Rep. Ron Barber, D-AZ, “introduced his own, more limited bill, supported by a handful of Democrats, called the Strengthening Mental Health in Our Communities Act of 2014.” Rep. Murphy’s bill is considered to be “more sweeping” than the competing Barber bill. Meanwhile, some advocates for people with mental illnesses are concerned that partisanship could sink the chances of passing any mental health reform legislation, while others believe both measures could provide a compromise framework.

In her “Potomac Watch” opinion column in the Wall Street Journal (5/9, A13, Subscription Publication), Kimberly A. Strassel excoriates the Barber bill as an exercise in Democratic partisanship at the expense of people with severe mental illnesses.

Related Links:

— “Congressmen introduce competing mental health bills,” Liz Szabo, USA Today, May 8, 2014.

Medscape (5/9, Cassels) reports that according to research presented at the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting, “cannabis use in college students with psychiatric disorders is high and appears to have a significantly greater negative impact on function in this population.” Researchers, after conducting “a cross-sectional study from the Young Adult Behavioral Health Program at Rhode Island Hospital, which receives psychiatric outpatient referrals from eight colleges in the state,” discovered that nearly “25% of college students being treated for a mental illness also abused cannabis, which was linked to significant functional impairment and a greater likelihood of medical leave from school compared with their counterparts who used cannabis but did not have a mental illness.”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

The New York Times (5/8, Saker) “Well” blog reports that over the past three years, psychologist Linda Crane, of the College of Mount St. Joseph, along with “fellow Mount St. Joseph psychologist, Tracy McDonough, have built the Schizophrenia Oral History Project,” the first such project “to focus on schizophrenia, they say.” The two psychologists have “so far…recruited two dozen people to sit down with them and a voice recorder, asking their ‘narrators’ simply: What’s it like to be you?”

Related Links:

— “Stories as a Window Into Schizophrenia,” Anne Saker, New York Times, May 8, 2014.

The Wall Street Journal (5/8, A6, Wang, Subscription Publication) reports that according to a study published online May 8 in The Lancet, people with severe mental illnesses appear to be far less likely to commit violent crimes if they are on antipsychotics.

The Los Angeles Times (5/8, Healy) reports that “among the study’s 82,647 subjects–all of them prescribed an antipsychotic or mood-stabilizing drug at some point between 2006 and 2009–routinely taking an antipsychotic drug was linked to a 29% reduced probability of being convicted of a drug-related charge, a 22% decline in convictions for any crime, and a 26% reduction in the likelihood of arrest on suspicion of having committed a violent crime.”

Related Links:

— “Medications Cut Violence Among Mentally Ill in Study,” Shirley S. Wang, Wall Street Journal, May 7, 2014.

The Congressional Quarterly (5/7, Young, Subscription Publication) reports that on Tuesday, “Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius urged an end to the stigma that often is attached to seeking treatment for psychiatric conditions.” Sebelius remarked, “We need to get to a place in this country where everyone feels comfortable accessing treatment without the fear of getting judged, to a place where anyone feels as comfortable saying that they are going for counseling as they are for a flu shot.” The piece notes that Sebelius “was among the speakers at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day.”

Related Links:

— Congressional Quarterly (requires login and subscription)

The New York Times (5/7, Reynolds) “Well” blog reports that according to a study published online April 2 in the journal Neurology, “the more physically active you are at age 25, the better your thinking tends to be when you reach middle age.” Researchers arrived at that conclusion after having analyzed data gathered “over several decades” for the “Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults” study, which started during the middle of the 1980s.

Related Links:

— “Early Fitness Can Improve the Middle-Age Brain,” Gretchen Reynolds, New York Times, May 7, 2014.

HealthDay (5/7, Dotinga) reports that according to research presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies’ annual meeting, “children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [AD/HD] may be more likely to be part of families that are affected by poverty, divorce, neighborhood violence and substance abuse.” After analyzing “the answers of parents of 65,680 children aged 6-17 who responded to a 2011 survey,” researchers found that “about 12 percent of the kids had been diagnosed with AD/HD, and their parents reported higher rates of various problems than the parents of kids without AD/HD did.”

Related Links:

— “Kids With ADHD May Also Suffer Family Troubles,” Randy Dotinga, HealthDay, May 6, 2014.

Medscape (5/7, Anderson) reports that according to research presented at the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting, “private school students are much less likely to report suicidal plans, thoughts, and attempts compared with their public school counterparts.” The study revealed that “of the total sample of 8,407 private school children, 10.1% said they entertained thoughts of suicide; about half of those (5.2%) reported suicidal plans, and 2.8% reported suicide attempts.” The data on public school students came “from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System.”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)