American Medical News (5/3, Lubell) reported, “In refusing to discuss mentally ill patients’ conditions with family members or caretakers, physicians could be misinterpreting federal privacy rules, witnesses told a House panel April 25. There’s a concern that the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act is compromising patient care and public safety by interfering with these discussions, said Rep. Tim Murphy (R, Pa.), who chairs the House Energy and Commerce oversight and investigations subcommittee.” In fact, “in instances where patients may pose imminent and serious threats to themselves or others, health care professionals may invoke their ethical ‘duty to warn’ by alerting family members, enforcement officials or perhaps even the targets of those threats…said” Leon Rodriguez, director of the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights.

Related Links:

— “Misreading HIPAA privacy law blocks mental health discussions, “Jennifer Lubell, American Medical News, May 3, 2013.

HealthDay (5/6, Gordon) reports, “Significantly more US children have a neurodevelopmental or mental health disability than did a decade ago,” according to research presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies’ annual meeting. Researchers arrived at that conclusion after having “reviewed data from two National Health Interview Surveys conducted by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). They included more than 102,000 parents of children from infancy through” age 17.

Related Links:

— “More Kids Diagnosed With Mental Health Disabilities, Study Finds, “Serena Gordon, HealthDay, May 5, 2013.

HealthDay (5/5, Preidt) reported, “About 90 percent of pediatric specialists who diagnose and manage attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) in preschool children do not follow treatment guidelines published recently by the American Academy of Pediatrics, according to a” study presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies’ annual meeting. “Some prescribe medications too soon, while others do not give the young patients drugs even as a second-line treatment, according to study author Dr. Andrew Adesman.” The study also found that even though “methylphenidate (Ritalin) is recommended as the first drug to try when medications are warranted, many doctors prescribed other types of” medications.

Related Links:

— “Most Docs Don’t Follow ADHD Treatment Guidelines for Preschoolers: Study, “Robert Preidt, HealthDay, May 4, 2013.

The CBS Evening News (5/2, story 9, 2:35, Pelley) reported, “The Centers for Disease Control said suicides are now the tenth-leading cause of death in this country. In 2010, more than 38,000 Americans took their own lives and that is nearly 5,000 more than died in traffic accidents.”

On its front page, the New York Times (5/3, A1, Parker-Pope, Subscription Publication) reports, “Suicide rates among middle-aged Americans have risen sharply in the past decade, prompting concern that a generation of baby boomers who have faced years of economic worry and easy access to prescription painkillers may be particularly vulnerable to self-inflicted harm,” according to findings published in the May 3 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Related Links:

— “Suicide Rates Rise Sharply in U.S., “Tara Parker-Pope, The New York Times, May 2, 2013.

Medwire (5/1, McDermid) reports, “Patients with bipolar disorder [BD] are more likely to adhere to their medication if they have a positive perception of their relationship with their psychiatrist,” according to a study published online April 19 in the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology. “A range of positive factors in the Helping Alliance Questionnaire were significantly associated with medication adherence in the 3,337 patients with bipolar disorder who participated in the six-year study. These were being dependent on the psychiatrist, having a good relationship with them, respecting their views, and having meaningful exchanges with them.” Patients also had a higher likelihood of adhering to their medication if they felt understood by their psychiatrists.

Related Links:

— “Therapeutic alliance influences bipolar disorder medication adherence, “Eleanor McDermid, Medwire News, May 1, 2013.

The New York Times (5/1, A10, Schwarz, Subscription Publication) reports that “dozens of colleges [are] tightening the rules on the diagnosis of” attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) “and the subsequent prescription of amphetamine-based medications” to treat it. “Some schools are reconsidering how their student health offices handle AD/HD, and even if they should at all. Various studies have estimated that as many as 35 percent of college students illicitly take these stimulants to provide jolts of focus and drive during finals and other periods of heavy stress.”

Lawsuit Filed Against Harvard Spotlights Issues Involving AD/HD Diagnosis. In a related story, the New York Times (5/1, A12, Schwarz, Subscription Publication) reports that a lawsuit filed against Harvard University “provides rare detail on the issues involving a diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [AD/HD] from a student-health department.” The case centers around a rising sophomore who had been prescribed a medication for AD/HD “after a single examination at Harvard University Health Services.” The young man went on to commit suicide about half a year later after he received a prescription for antidepressants. The father of the victim “contends, among other accusations, that his son had never had AD/HD and that Harvard’s original diagnostic procedure, and subsequent prescriptions for Adderall [amphetamine mixed salts], did not meet medical standards.”

Related Links:

— “Attention-Deficit Drugs Face New Campus Rules, “Alan Schwarz, The New York Times, April 30, 2013.

HealthDay (4/30, Mann) reports that the use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) “around the time of surgery may increase risks associated with the procedure, including bleeding, the need for a blood transfusion, hospital readmission and even death,” according to research published in JAMA Internal Medicine. Investigators looked at data on “more than half a million people who had surgery at 375 U.S. hospitals between 2006 and 2008.”

MedPage Today (4/30, Phend) reports that individuals “on SSRIs in the perioperative period had 20% higher odds of dying in the hospital after elective major surgery (95% CI 1.07 to 1.36) compared with all other patients.” The researchers also found that “bleeds and early readmission to the hospital also occurred more often among those patients.” However, these results did not “prove causality.”

Related Links:

— “Some Antidepressants Linked to Bleeding Risk With Surgery, “Denise Mann, HealthDay, April 29, 2013.

Medscape (4/30, Lowry) reports, “Emotional abuse experienced in childhood, especially in children aged five years and younger, confers an increased risk for bipolar disorder [BD],” according to research presented April 24 at the 14th International Congress on Schizophrenia Research. The study involved more than 700 patients and controls. “Regression analysis showed that children who were emotionally abused were more than twice as likely to develop bipolar disorder (odds ratio [OR], 2.14; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.51 – 3.02).”

Alabama Live (4/30, Oliver) reports that people who follow a Mediterranean diet “were 19 percent less likely to develop problems with their thinking and memory skills,” according to a studypublished April 29 in the journal Neurology.

HealthDay (4/30, Reinberg) reports, “Using data from participants enrolled in a nationwide study on stroke, the researchers gleaned diet information from more than 17,000 white and black men and women whose average age was 64.” Study “participants also took tests that measured their memory and thinking (cognitive) skills.”

Related Links:

— “Mediterranean Diet Might Help Stave Off Dementia, “Steven Reinberg, HealthDay, April 29, 2013.

In an editorial, the New York Times (4/27, Subscription Publication) said that the US “is beginning to realize that it cannot enforce or imprison its way out of the addiction problem,” but in order to “create broadly accessible and effective treatment strategies for the millions of people who need them, it must abandon the ‘drug war’ approach to addiction that has dominated the national discourse in favor of a policy that treats addiction as a public health issue.” The Affordable Care Act “sets the stage for such a transformation by barring insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, including substance dependency.”

Related Links:

— “The Next Step in Drug Treatment, “The Editorial Board, The New York Times, April 26, 2013.