The AP (6/18, Shastri ) reports the 988 National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline will no longer provide “tailored support options to LGBTQ+ youth and young adults on July 17, according to a statement on a federal agency’s website.” The action “preempts the Trump administration’s 2026 budget proposal to cut funding for 988’s LGBTQ+ youth and young adult services, and is raising alarm bells among LGBTQ+ advocates.” SAMHSA said in a Tuesday statement on its website that the decision was made to “no longer silo” the services and “to focus on serving all help seekers, including those previously served through the Press 3 option.” Federal data indicate “the LGBTQ+ youth program has served nearly 1.3 million callers since it started in September 2022.”

Reuters (6/18) adds that the Trevor Project, “a non-profit that provides free, specialized support to LGBT youth, said on Wednesday that its hotline would soon close as a result of the funding not being renewed.” A spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget “said funding would continue for 988 Lifeline, a wider suicide prevention hotline.”

Related Links:

— “Trump administration removing 988 hotline service tailored to LGBTQ+ youth in July,” Devi Shastri, Associated Press, June 18, 2025

The New York Times (6/18, Barry ) reports that a study published in JAMA found that “longer screen time at age 10 was not associated with higher rates of suicidal behavior four years later.” Instead, researchers observed that “children at higher risk for suicidal behaviors were those who told researchers their use of technology had become ‘addictive’ – that they had trouble putting it down, or felt the need to use it more and more.” They found that “by age 14, children with high or increasing addictive behavior were two to three times as likely as other children to have thoughts of suicide or to harm themselves.” It also “found higher levels of addictive use of social media, video games and mobile phones among Black and Hispanic adolescents,” and that “for nearly half of the children in the study, addictive phone use was consistently high from age 11; another 25 percent began with low addictive use, which increased steeply.”

Psychiatric News (6/18) reports the researchers used “data from 4,285 youth enrolled in the longitudinal Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study.” They found that “nearly half of the participants had high addictive use scores for mobile phones throughout the follow-up, and more than 40% had a high addictive use trajectory for video games. Only 10% of participants had a high addictive use trajectory for social media, but another 31% had addictive use scores that increased over time; 25% of participants also reported an increasing addictive use trajectory for mobile phones.”

Related Links:

— “Screentime Addictive Behaviors in Children Common, Tied to Later Suicidality,” Psychiatric News, June 18, 2025

HCPlive (6/17, Brooks ) reports a study found that among patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and psoriatic arthritis (PsA), “depression and anxiety had reduced odds of achieving remission, although anxiety lost significance in adjusted analyses.” The study highlights “the negative impact of depressive symptoms during the first 2 years after disease diagnosis.” Researchers noted that “remission was less frequently achieved after 1 and 2 years of follow-up in both RA and PsA patients with depression or anxiety at baseline. Further analysis revealed depression and anxiety were associated with reduced odds of achieving remission in both RA and PsA. Of note, after adjustment for depression in the analyses of anxiety and vice versa, only depression remained associated with a lower likelihood of achieving remission.” The study was published in Rheumatology

Related Links:

— “Depression Reduces Remission Likelihood in Rheumatoid, Psoriatic Arthritis,” Abigail Brooks, MA, HCPLive, June 17, 2025

HealthDay (6/17, Thompson ) reports a systematic review and meta-analysis of 11 previous studies suggests that “electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) lowered the risk of death by suicide 34% among patients with severe depression.” They noted that “depression patients receiving ECT also had a 30% lower risk of death from any cause,” and these “benefits might be even greater than reflected, given that ECT has improved as a psychiatric treatment.” With that said, “because the studies were observational and not clinical trials, they cannot draw a direct cause-and-effect link between ECT and lowered suicide risk.” The study was published in the journal Neuroscience Applied.

Related Links:

— “Electroshock Therapy Appears To Reduce Suicide Risk Among People With Depression,” Dennis Thompson, HealthDay, June 17, 2025

MedPage Today (6/17, Monaco ) reports the FDA has “eliminated clozapine’s risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS) program, with all REMS operations stopped as of June 13.” The announcement comes months after “joint FDA advisory committee voted to eliminate the REMS program for clozapine that was put in place due to the risk for severe neutropenia associated with the drug, which is used to treat schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder.” With the program eliminated, “clozapine prescribers don’t need to submit patients’ absolute neutrophil count (ANC) results and pharmacies no longer need to obtain a REMS Dispense Authorization prior to dispensing clozapine.” The FDA continues to recommend “that prescribers monitor patients’ ANC according to the monitoring frequencies listed on the drug label.”

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)