HealthDay (11/21, Preidt) reports that according to a report issued by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and based on the agency’s annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health, “nearly one in five American adults – 43.8 million people – had a diagnosable mental illness in 2013.” In addition, the report revealed “10 million adults had a serious mental illness, 15.7 million had major depressive episodes, 9.3 million had serious thoughts of suicide, 2.7 million made suicide plans and 1.3 million attempted suicide.” In a news release, SAMHSA Administrator Pamela Hyde said, “It is a serious issue that millions of Americans are needlessly affected by mental illness when they can get effective treatment to restore their well-being.” Hyde emphasized the importance of seeking help.

Related Links:

— “1 in 5 U.S. Adults Dealt With a Mental Illness in 2013,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, November 20, 2014.

The New York Times (11/21, Parker-Pope) “Well” blog reports that according to a report released Nov. 20 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in the CDC’s Preventing Chronic Disease journal, the majority of “people who drink to get drunk are not alcoholics.” The conclusions of “a government survey of 138,100 adults counters the conventional wisdom that every ‘falling-down drunk’” has an addiction to alcohol. Rather, “the results from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health show that nine out of 10 people who drink too much are not addicts, and can change their behavior with a little – or perhaps a lot of – prompting.”

Related Links:

— “Most Heavy Drinkers Are Not Alcoholics,” Tara Parker-Pope, New York Times, November 20, 2014.

Medscape (11/20, Cassels) reports that according to a study published online Nov. 19 in JAMA Psychiatry, “collaborative care delivered via telemedicine may offer a viable and effective way of treating veterans with severe posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) who live in rural and remote areas.” The “results of a multisite, randomized effectiveness trial” including 265 veterans with PTSD “showed that Telemedicine Outreach for PTSD (TOP), an off-site intervention in which a multidisciplinary PTSD care team uses telemedicine tools, such as telephone calls, interactive videos, and shared electronic medical records, to support on-site [healthcare professionals] significantly improved clinical outcomes in veterans compared with usual care.”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

USA Today (11/20, Crutchfield) reports that at a meeting of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee yesterday, senators concluded that “veterans at risk of suicide have to wait too long to get mental health treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs.” Each day, “about 22 veterans commit suicide…VA records show, and they remain a higher risk of suicide than members of the general population.” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) told representatives of the VA, “We cannot have someone call in for an appointment and have to wait five weeks to get help.”

Related Links:

— “At-risk veterans need help on suicide, senators say,” Charmaine Crutchfield, USA Today, November 19, 2014.

The Higher Education Mental Health Alliance (HEMHA) has published Postvention: A Guide for Response to Suicide on College Campuses. From its introduction:

This resource is intended for use by colleges and universities that are affected by and/or want to be prepared for campus crises and campus deaths. Suicide postvention efforts address the need for predetermined strategies to effectively and sensitively respond to campus deaths after they occur and also contribute to improved prevention efforts….While our hope is that schools will use this guide to help with planning so that systems are in place to respond, we have tried to make this guide sufficiently concise to be valuable also when a school has not engaged in planning but is faced with a student suicide and needs to rapidly develop and implement a response plan.

The guide specifically looks at facilitating the grieving process, stabilizing environments, reducing negative behaviors, and limiting further suicides through contagion.

Another resource for learning about depression associated with college life is the Maryland Foundation for Psychiatry’s own Love, From Depression site.