The Cincinnati (OH) Enquirer (3/15, Johnston) reports, “The world’s largest collection of suicide notes, more than 1,300 in all, is at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.” Researchers there “are using advanced computer technology to analyze the language in the notes and gain a deeper understanding of the thoughts of the people who wrote them. The goal is to create a tool, perhaps within two years, that can help mental health workers assess the likelihood a person will attempt suicide.”

Related Links:

— “Saving lives with world’s largest suicide-note collection, “John Johnston, Cincinnati.com, March 15, 2013.

The AP (3/14, Press) reports, “Young men who have served in the British military are about three times more likely than civilians to have committed a violent offense,” according to a study published online March 15 in The Lancet. One “key predictor was violent behavior before enlisting. Combat duty also raised the risk, as did witnessing traumatic events during deployment or misusing alcohol afterward,” the article notes.

Reuters (3/15, Kelland) reports that researchers arrived at these conclusions after having studied data on some 14,000 UK soldiers who were deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq and then cross-checking that data against data derived from criminal records.

BBC News (3/15, Gallagher) reports, “Overall criminal activity was slightly lower in military personnel than in people of the same age in the wider population.” But, “the researchers found violent offending was higher within members of the armed services and there was a ‘stark’ difference in men under 30 – 20.6% of the 2,728 young men followed had committed a violent offence, compared with 6.7% of young mven outside the military.” The majority of “violent offences were assaults.”

Related Links:

— “Study finds British soldiers, vets who had combat duty more likely to commit violent crimes, “Associated Press, The Washington Post, March 14, 2013.

Medwire (3/14, Piper) reports, “Criminal justice problems are relatively common among patients with bipolar disorder [BD], but researchers have identified an array of risk factors that they believe will provide guidance when evaluating patients and identifying preventive strategies,” according to research published online March 7 in the Journal of Affective Disorders. “The factors were identified based on 34,508 wave 2 respondents of the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) with valid responses to the mania section.” Notably, “a range of historical, clinical, and contextual factors were found to increase the risk for criminal involvement, but two multivariate analyses indicated the risk was particularly high for patients who were unemployed (odds ratio [OR]=3.89-4.27), of non-White race (OR=3.68-3.93), who had previously been detained as juveniles (OR=4.25-5.17), had a prior arrest while manic or using drugs (OR=3.28-3.62), used illicit drugs in the past year (OR=3.31-3.98), or showed both social and occupational impairment (OR=4.75-4.80).”

Related Links:

— “Integrated approach needed for reducing crime in bipolar disorder patients, “Lucy Piper, Medwire News, March 14, 2013.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (3/14, Hamill) reports, “In what is believed to be the largest study of its kind on depression in new mothers, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh found that about one in seven women have experienced the illness before, during or after pregnancy. The study…involved screening 10,000 new mothers at Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC over four years ending in 2011.”

On its “All Things Considered” program and in its “Shots” blog, NPR (3/13, Neighmond) reports that “the study, published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, finds that among women followed for a year after delivery, some 22 percent had been depressed. The study also recommends that all pregnant women and new mothers be screened for depression.”

Related Links:

— “University of Pittsburgh researchers find depression affects about 1 in 7 new mothers, “Sean D. Hamill, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 14, 2013.

USA Today (3/13, Painter) reports that according to a new position paper published online March 13 in the journal Neurology, physicians “should not give in to pressure to prescribe medications that might boost mental performance in healthy children and teens.” The position paper “focuses mostly on inappropriate use of Ritalin [methylphenidate], Adderall [amphetamine, dextroamphetamine mixed salts] and other stimulant medications commonly used to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD).” These medicines “are sought out by some parents, teens and college students as grade-boosting ‘study drugs.'”

The Hartford (CT) Courant (3/13, Weir) reports that the authors of the position paper contend that the overprescription of stimulant medications “poses both health risks and ethical concerns: the long-term effects of the medications are unknown, the practice creates the potential for over-medication and dependency, and it jeopardizes the integrity of the doctor-patient relationship.” The Courant quotes the paper’s lead author, Dr. William Graf, of the Yale School of Medicine, who said, “You have ethics and professional integrity to consider.”

On its website, CBS News (3/14, Jaslow) reports, “In recent years, a growing number of students have used the medications as ‘study drugs’ to take before tests, and in turn, more parents are requesting AD/HD drugs for kids who don’t meet the criteria for the disorder.” A study published last June in the journal “Pediatrics found the number of AD/HD drug prescriptions for children under 17 climbed 46 percent from 2002 to 2012. Methylphenidate – a psychostimulant drug for AD/HD sold generically or as Ritalin and Concerta – was the top prescription dispensed to adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17.”

The NBC News (3/13, Rettner) “Vitals” blog runs a MyHealthNewsDaily story that reports, “Over the last two decades, there’s been a 20 percent increase in AD/HD diagnoses, and a tenfold increase in the production and consumption of AD/HD medications.” Still, “whether doctors are intentionally prescribing AD/HD drugs to healthy kids, or whether they mistakenly diagnose the children with AD/HD based on children’s reports of their own symptoms, is not clear.” Adolescents “may fake symptoms of the behavioral disorder, or parents may lie to doctors for their children to get the drugs.”

CNN (3/13, Christensen) reports that AD/HD medications may “have serious side effects like cardiac risks, and taking them can be addictive.” Yet, despite the potential for physical side effects and abuse, Dr. Mark Wolraich, chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics clinical practice guideline subcommittee on AD/HD, is concerned that some parents “may be too nervous to seek treatment for their children with AD/HD, for whom the drugs would actually be beneficial.”

Also covering the story are Reuters (3/14, Pittman), the Connecticut Post (3/14, Cuda), HealthDay (3/14, Gray), and Medscape (3/14, Anderson).

Related Links:

— “Don’t give kids ADHD drugs as study aid, doctors warn, “Kim Painter, USA Today, March 13, 2013.