HealthDay (9/27, Norton) reported that according to a paper published online Sept. 26 in The Lancet Psychiatry, researchers reviewed 101 clinical studies and found that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) appears to be the “better first option” for the treatment of social phobia in teens instead of antidepressant medications. The piece also noted that “an estimated 15 million US adults have social anxiety disorder, according to the US National Institutes of Health.” TIME (9/27, Oaklander) also covered the story.

Related Links:

— “Behavioral Therapy Deemed Best for Social Phobia,” Amy Norton, HealthDay, September 26, 2014.

Medscape (9/26, Brauser) reports that according to a report released by LifeWay Research, even though people “with mental illness often first seek guidance from their church, many pastors do not offer help.” Researchers arrived at that conclusion after surveying “1000 senior Protestant pastors, more than 300 individuals with a mental illness diagnosis, and 207 family members of those with an acute psychiatric illness.”

When asked for comment by Medscape, Annelle Primm, MD, MPH, deputy medical director for the American Psychiatric Association (APA), said, “The faith community is an important partner and an important vehicle for people to recognize they have an illness that needs help from a psychiatrist or other mental health professional.”

Dr. Primm, who was not involved in the research, also “noted that, unfortunately, there have been barriers and taboos to mental health–seeking that are ‘being illuminated because of studies like these.’”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

Modern Healthcare (9/25, Dickson, Subscription Publication) reports that many community health centers find themselves providing low-cost services to people who purchased “bronze” level health insurance plans through Affordable Care Act exchanges. Low income individuals who hold such bare-bones health plans often find themselves unable to pay the full cost of coverage in the face of bronze plans’ high deductibles and co-pays.

The situation is seen as indicitive of a larger problem in the post-ACA world. “With the Affordable Care Act, while the number of uninsured may be dropping, there’s a new challenge in that there is now a huge cadre of underinsured people,” said Sara Rosenbaum, The George Washington University’s health policy chair.

Related Links:

ACCOUNT REQUIRED — “Underinsured ACA enrollees strain community health centers,” Virgil Dickson, Modern Healthcare, September 25, 2014.

Reuters (9/26, Doyle) reports that according to a study published online Sept. 22 in JAMA Pediatrics, the majority of US children who are on medications for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) are not undergoing any sort of behavioral counseling.

HealthDay (9/26, Thompson) reports that the findings “raise concerns that doctors may just be prescribing pills for behavior problems, rather than targeting kids’ specific difficulties through judicious use of medication and therapy, said lead author Dr. Walid Gellad, an adjunct scientist at RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research organization.”

In arriving at the study’s conclusions, investigators “combed through a commercial insurance claims database to identify more than 300,000 children aged 17 or younger who filled a prescription for AD/HD medication in 2010,” then cross-checked to determine if the youngsters had also gotten any behavioral counseling that year.

Related Links:

— “One in four kids on ADHD meds gets therapy too,” Kathryn Doyle, Reuters, September 25, 2014.

The Connecticut Mirror (9/25, Radelat) introduces the alarming trend of veteran suicide through personal stories. The article goes on to cite 22 national veteran suicides daily, with concerns of under-reporting due to stigmatization. Though Connecticut has one of the lowest rates at 28.8 per 100,000, compared to the national rate of 35.9, its veterans still commit suicide twice as frequently as non-veterans.

The article cites criticisms of VA healthcare, including mental healthcare’s wait times and the cycling of counselors. A VA audit in May found average wait times of four days at West Haven, 28 days at Waterbury, and 33 at Winsted. Maureen Pasko, suicide prevention coordinator with the West Haven VA hospital, said caregivers “only capture 50% of what is going.”

The article closes citing complaints of other suicide victims’ families and calls for overhaul of the VA healthcare system.

Related Links:

— “SUICIDE BY VETERANS REMAINS A DAUNTING PROBLEM AS VA STRUGGLES TO IMPROVE CARE,” Ana Radelat, Connecticut Mirror, September 24, 2014.