HealthDay (10/18, Gotkine) reports, “ChatGPT provides recommendations that align with accepted guidelines for management of mild and severe depression, according to” findings published online Oct. 4 in Family Medicine and Community Health. After presenting vignettes about depression ten times to Chat GPT-3.5 and Chat GPT-4, researchers concluded that “ChatGPT-3.5 and ChatGPT-4 recommended psychotherapy in 95.0 and 97.5 percent of cases, respectively, for mild depression, while primary care physicians recommended psychotherapy in 4.3 percent of cases.” Additionally, “for severe cases, primary care physicians mostly recommended ‘referral for psychotherapy and prescription of pharmacological treatment,’” while “ChatGPT favored this approach more frequently.”

Related Links:

— “ChatGPT Potentially Beneficial for Treating Depression,”Elana Gotkine, HealthDay, October 18, 2023

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