HCPlive (9/16, Kunzmann) reported, “Sexual dysfunction is highly prevalent among individuals with schizophrenia relative to the general population,” investigators concluded in the findings of a 72-study systematic review and meta-analysis published online Sept. 13 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Sexual Dysfunction “Extremely Frequent” in Patients with Schizophrenia,”Kevin Kunzmann, HCPlive, September 16, 2023

Psychiatric News (9/14) reports researchers posit that “mental health disorders may be a stronger factor than substance use disorders in” people with recent criminal legal involvement “seeking health services,” according to findings published online Sept. 7 in Psychiatric Services, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association. The study of “9,039 community-dwelling adults 18 years and over who indicated they had been arrested, on probation, and/or on parole/supervised release in the past year” revealed that “compared with individuals with neither disorder, those with mental illness had an average of 1.46 times as many outpatient visits, 1.43 times as many emergency department visits, and 2.14 times as many days spent in inpatient care.” What’s more, people “with comorbid mental illness and substance use disorder had 1.62 times as many emergency department visits and 4.16 times as many inpatient days as those with neither disorder.”

Related Links:

— “Study Explores Factors Driving Health Care Use Among Those Involved With Criminal Legal System, Psychiatric News , September 14, 2023

CNN (9/14, Shoichet) reports, “A smaller share of Gen Z is thriving compared to millennials at the same age, and members of Gen Z are far less likely to describe their mental health as ‘excellent,’” according to a reportthat “surveyed more than 3,000 people aged 12-26 in April and May of this year.” The report revealed that just “41% of Gen Z members aged 18 to 26 are thriving…while millennials at the same age were thriving at a rate of about 60%.”

Related Links:

— “Does Gen Z struggle more with mental health than millennials? New polling shows signs of a shift,” Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN , September 14, 2023

NBC News (9/14, Sullivan) reports, “The U.S. is in the throes of what researchers have deemed a ‘fourth wave’ of the opioid crisis, a phase characterized by overdose deaths caused by the combination of stimulants and the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl.” Drug “overdose deaths in the U.S. surpassed 100,000 for the first time in 2021, fueled by the rise of synthetic opioids” like fentanyl, “which accounted for 75% of those deaths.” However, “now it has taken on a new challenge: so-called polysubstance overdoses, which include more than one drug.” The share “of overdoses involving fentanyl and a stimulant – most commonly cocaine and methamphetamine – increased more than 50 fold from 2010 to 2021, a study published Thursday in the journal Addiction found.”

ABC News (9/14, Koirala, Aggarwal) reports, “In 2010, only .6% of overdose deaths involved fentanyl combined with stimulants, according to the analysis.” And “that year, fentanyl was most commonly found mixed in with prescription opioids and benzodiazepines.” However, “by 2021, 32.3% of overdose deaths involved the combination of fentanyl and stimulants.”

Related Links:

— “Fentanyl plus stimulants drives ‘fourth wave’ of overdose epidemic in the U.S.,” Kaitlin Sullivan, NBC News, September 14, 2023

CNN (9/13, McPhillips) reports, “Drug overdose deaths reached another record level in the United States this spring, new data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows, as 2023 is on track to be another devastating year amid the drug epidemic.” Over “111,000 people died from a drug overdose in the 12-month period ending in April, according to the new estimates.” The prior “record from March 2022 was first surpassed in December, and deaths have been ticking up since.” However, “the pace of the increase is much slower than it’s been in recent years, especially compared with the steep rise in the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic.” Nonetheless, “the latest data through April shows that about a thousand more lives were lost in the past 12 months than in the year before that.”

Related Links:

— “Overdose deaths continue to rise in the US, reaching another record level, provisional data shows,”Deidre McPhillips, CNN, September 13, 2023