Psychiatric News (10/18) reports, “States vary widely in the reporting of mental health data to the federal system known as NICS that conducts background checks on people who want to own a firearm,” researchers concluded in a study that “used the Thomson Reuters Westlaw database to identify and collect data on each state’s laws regarding mental health reporting requirements between February and April 2022.” The study team “analyzed data on whether the states required reporting to NICS, how many requirements the states imposed, and the type of mental health and/or substance use-related events that were required to be reported.” The findings were published online Oct. 16 in a research letter in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Related Links:

— “State MH Reporting Requirements Vary for Firearm Background Checks, Psychiatric News , October 18, 2023

PatientEngagementHIT (10/17, Heath) reports, “A dementia diagnosis is going to cost you, with new data from the University of Michigan showing that individual personal wealth dropped after a diagnosis while out-of-pocket health care costs nearly doubled.” Published in JAMA Internal Medicine, the data “showed personal wealth decreasing from around $79,000 at diagnosis to $58,000 two years after. Meanwhile, out-of-pocket health care costs soared from $4,000 at diagnosis to $8,000 after a dementia diagnosis.” As time wore on, the trend continued: “after eight years, people with dementia saw their wealth drop to an average of $30,500 and had spent twice as much as their peers on health care expenses.”

Related Links:

— “Out-of-Pocket Healthcare Costs Double with Dementia Diagnosis,” Sara Heath, PatientEngagementHIT , October 17, 2023

HealthDay (10/17, Reinberg) reports, “Women are more likely to develop depression after suffering a traumatic brain injury (TBI),” investigators concluded after analyzing data from “nine published studies” that “included nearly 700,000 people.” The systematic review revealed that “the risk for depression among women after a TBI was nearly 50% higher than it is for men.” The findings were presented Monday at the annual meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists.

Related Links:

— “Women Face Higher Odds of Depression After Head Injury Than Men,”Steven Reinberg, HealthDay , October 17, 2023

HealthDay (10/17, Gotkine) reports, “The rates of major depressive disorder (MDD) vary from 14.5 to 26.5percent among adolescents by race and ethnicity,” researchers concluded after conducting “a cross-sectional analysis of the nationally representative 2021 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, including 10,743 U.S. adolescents aged 12 to 17 years.” The findings were published online Oct. 9 in JAMA Pediatrics. “During the first full calendar year of the pandemic, approximately 1 in 5 adolescents had MDD, and less than half of adolescents who needed treatment had any mental health treatment. Adolescents in racial and ethnic minority groups, particularly Latinx, experienced the lowest treatment rates.”

Related Links:

— “Among Adolescents, Major Depressive Disorder Prevalence Varies by Race, Ethnicity,”Elana Gotkine, HealthDay , October 17, 2023

HealthDay (10/17, Gotkine) reports, “Depressive symptoms in adults are associated with mortality in a graded association,” investigators concluded after conducting “a prospective cohort study to examine the association between depressive symptoms and mortality in a large, nationally representative sample of 23,694 U.S. adults.” The findings were published online Oct. 9 in JAMA Network Open. “ Risk of all-cause, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and ischemic fears disease (IHD) mortality was 62%, 79%, and 121% higher, respectively, for those with moderate to severe depressive symptoms compared to those without depressive symptoms. Associations were largely consistent across subgroups and in all sensitivity analyses.”

Related Links:

— “Graded Association ID’d for Depressive Symptoms With Mortality Risk,”Elana Gotkine, HealthDay , October 17, 2023

According to HealthDay (10/16), “For women with myocardial infarction (MI), stress and depression are common at the time of MI and two months later,” a study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology shows. Investigators “found that women with MINOCA (myocardial infarction with nonobstructive coronary arteries) were younger and more diverse than women with MI-CAD (myocardial infarction-coronary artery disease).”

Related Links:

— “Stress, Depression Common Among Women With Myocardial Infarction,”Elana Gotkine, HealthDay , October 16, 2023

Medscape (10/16, Banks, Subscription Publication) reports, “Patients who need medications for opioid use disorder (OUD) should continue to receive them prior to surgery, rather than stopping those drugs, as has been the convention,” according to findings from “a new analysis of more than five million surgeries presented at Anesthesiology 2023.”

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— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

MedPage Today (10/16, Haelle) reports, “People taking antidepressants lost a similar amount of weight on semaglutide 2.4 mg (Wegovy) compared with those not taking antidepressants, according to a post-hoc analysis of four STEP trials” presented at the ObesityWeek annual meeting. The study revealed that “participants on antidepressants taking the GLP-1 receptor agonist lost an average 10.7% to 19% of their baseline body weight compared to a 9.5% to 15.9% loss in participants not taking antidepressants.”

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

HCPlive (10/16, Brooks) reports, “Hospitalized patients using mirtazapine, nortriptyline, and trazodone are at a greater risk of Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI),” researchers concluded in a study that compared “48,720 patients developed CDI…to 55,615,700 who did not.” The findings were published in the July-Sept. Issue of the journal Arquivos de Gastroenterologia.

Related Links:

— “Antidepressant Use Linked to Increased Risk of Hospital-Onset C Diff,”Abigail Brooks, HCPlive, October 16, 2023

MedPage Today (10/16, Henderson) reports, “A substantial proportion of young kids from low-income families had elevated levels of emotional and behavioral health problems seen in pediatric primary care, researchers” concluded in findings published online in JAMA Pediatrics. In the “retrospective cohort study of 15,218 children ages two to six years, fully one-third of children had screening tool scores reflecting clinically elevated levels of emotional and behavioral problems over time.” Additionally, “relative to those whose scores remained low over time, kids in the elevated score groups were more likely to be male, white, have public insurance, have had a social need, and a caregiver with depression,” the study revealed.

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)