HealthDay (8/10, Collins) reports, “People with autism are over three times more likely than their peers without the developmental disorder to experience self-injury, suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, or death by suicide, new research shows.” Investigators came to this conclusion after looking at data on “nearly 380,000 individuals for incidence of self-harm and almost 335,000 individuals for death by suicide.” The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “People With Autism Face Much Higher Risk for Self-Harm, Suicide,”Sarah D. Collins, HealthDay, August 10, 2023

The AP (8/10, Stobbe) reports that approximately “49,500 people took their own lives last year in the U.S., the highest number ever, according to new government data posted Thursday.” While the CDC, “which posted the numbers, has not yet calculated a suicide rate for the year…available data” suggest “suicides are more common in the U.S. than at any time since the dawn of World War II.”
        
CNN (8/10, McPhillips) reports, “Suicide rose to the 11th leading cause of death in 2021, and provisional data for 2022” show “the same.” Additionally, the provisional data show that “firearms were involved in more than half of all suicides in 2022.”
        
ABC News (8/10, Kekatos) reports, “The greatest increase was seen among adults aged 65 and older, which was up 8.1% from 2021, and the second highest increase was in those aged 45 to 64, with a 6.6% rise.” Additionally, “there…was an increase among those aged 25 to 44, but of just 0.7%.”

Related Links:

— “US suicides hit an all-time high last year,”Mike Stobbe, AP, August 10, 2023

The New York Times (8/10, Mandavilli) reports, “If you find that the blistering, unrelenting heat is making you anxious and irritable, even depressed, it’s not all in your head. Soaring temperatures can damage not just the body but also the mind.” And “as heat waves become more intense, more frequent and longer, it has become increasingly important to address the impact on mental health, scientists say.” Joshua Wortzel, MD, chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s committee on climate change and mental health, said, “It’s really only been over the past five years that there’s been a real recognition of the impact. Our understanding of the basic biology of why this association exists is still in its infancy.”

Related Links:

— “Heat Singes the Mind, Not Just the Body,”Apoorva Mandavilli, The New York Times, August 10, 2023

The Washington Post (8/9, Kam) reports, “Caring for a loved one with a serious illness, “ including dementia, “can be daunting for anyone,” and “for some men, especially those who are older, the transition can also be unfamiliar and jarring.” Last year, “41 percent of adults providing unpaid adult care were men, according to a Washington Post analysis of the latest American Time Use Survey data,” but “the gender gap in unpaid adult care continues to grow, with women providing most of the care.”

Related Links:

— “The Washington Post (requires login and subscription)

Psychiatric News (8/9) reports, “Patients with depression who scheduled an appointment to see a psychiatrist between July 2020 and October 2022 were less likely to miss or cancel the appointment if it was virtual compared with in person,” investigators concluded after examining “electronic health records for 12,894 patients aged 10 or older with a diagnosis of depression who scheduled 586,266 psychiatric outpatient appointments at Johns Hopkins Medicine between November 2017 and October 2022.” The study team then “compared the number of in-person and telepsychiatry appointments that patients completed, cancelled, or failed to show up to before the pandemic with these outcomes of in-person and telepsychiatry appointments scheduled from July 2020 to October 2022.” The findings were published online Aug. 9 in the journal Psychiatric Services, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

Related Links:

— “Patients Found Less Likely to Cancel Telepsychiatry Visits, Study Shows, Psychiatric News , August 9, 2023

Healio (8/8, Bascom) reports, “Healthcare support workers, social or behavioral health workers and registered nurses were at an increased risk for death by drug overdose compared with non-healthcare workers,” investigators concluded in a study “based on data from a nationally representative cohort from the 2008 American Community Survey including 176,000 healthcare workers and 1,662,000 non-healthcare workers aged 26 years or older who were followed through 2019.” The findings were published online Aug. 8 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

HealthDay (8/8, Murez) quotes Smita Das, MD, PhD, MPH, chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s Council on Addiction Psychiatry, who said, “Healthcare workers are often subject to incredible amounts of stress.” Dr. Das, who had no involvement in the study, added, “Early on this has to do with rigorous training and costs of that training, and later it has to do with job responsibilities.” Dr. Das also “said the analysis sheds light on an important topic – the health of those who look out for other people’s health.”

Related Links:

— “Three groups of health care workers face an increased risk for death from drug overdoses,”Emma Bascom, Healio , August 8, 2023

The Hill (8/7, Klar) reports, “Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered tools provided responses that promoted harmful eating disorder content in response to queries tested by researchers,” investigators concluded in the findings of a report release Aug. 7 by the Center for Countering Digital Hate. The report found that “popular AI tools, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot and Google’s rival tool Bard, provided responses that gave guides or advice on how to take part in harmful disordered eating behavior, such as stimulating vomiting or how to hide food from parents, according to the report.”

In an ethics column in the Washington Post (8/7), Geoffrey A. Fowler observes that “with eating disorders, the problem isn’t just AI making things up.” Rather, “AI is perpetuating very sick stereotypes we’ve hardly confronted in our culture.” Not only is it “disseminating misleading health information,” but it is also “fueling mental illness by pretending to be an authority or even a friend.”

Related Links:

— “AI chatbots provided harmful eating disorder content: report,”Rebecca Klar, The Hill , August 7, 2023

mHealth Intelligence (8/8, Melchionna) reports, “Using survey data on patient attitudes toward mental health services and depression screening,” research published online July 19 in the Journal of Medical Internet Research “indicated that Black American women are comfortable with using voice or video calls to communicate with mental health” clinicians. The 395-participant study also suggested that “Black American women are commonly affected by depression.

Related Links:

— “Black Women are Open to Mental Health Services Via Mobile Technology,”Mark Melchionna, mHealth Intelligence, August 8, 2023

According to CNN (8/7, McPhillips), “only about a third of adults with opioid use disorder” (OUD) “received any type of treatment for substance use,” and only about one in five “received medication to treat” the disorder, according to findings published online Aug. 7 in JAMA Network Open. The study also “supports previous research that has found telehealth to improve rates of treatment,” in that “those receiving substance use treatment via telehealth were nearly 40 times more likely to receive medications for opioid use disorder than those who did not receive telehealth treatment, the researchers found.”

According to HealthDay (8/7, Mann), after analyzing “data from the 2021 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, an annual survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration,” investigators found that “only 36% received any substance use treatment, and only 22% received medications for opioid use disorder.” Bloomberg (8/7, Jones, Griffin, Subscription Publication) also covers the story.

Related Links:

— “Only 1 in 5 adults with an opioid use disorder received medication to treat it in 2021,” Deidre McPhillips, CNN, August 7, 2023

MedPage Today (8/7, Henderson) reports, “For young people with opioid use disorder (OUD), buprenorphine costs have declined overall but with drastic variation by payer type,” researchers concluded in findingspublished online Aug. 7 in a research letter in JAMA Pediatrics. After “examining buprenorphine prescriptions dispensed for U.S. youth ages 12 to 19,” investigators found that “mean daily out-of-pocket costs declined 57.6% from 2015 through 2020 (from $4.03 to $1.71), with an increasing percentage of prescriptions paid by Medicaid.” Nevertheless, “those costs were approximately 24 times higher with commercial payers and 119 times higher for self-pay than with Medicaid in 2020,” the study team concluded.

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)