PatientEngagementHIT (9/15, Heath) reported, “The appointment scheduling process is proving not ideal, especially for Spanish-speaking or limited English proficiency (LEP) patients, according to data from RAND.” Published in Health Affairs, the study “showed that it’s harder for Spanish-speaking patients to get to the appointment scheduling process with front office staff in safety-net behavioral health clinics, let alone book the spot.” Rather, “Spanish-speaking patients are more likely than their White peers to be hung up on or told that nobody in the clinic could help them, posing serious barriers to treatment, the secret shopper survey showed.”

Related Links:

— “Appointment Scheduling Fixes Needed for LEP Patient Access,” Sara Heath, PatientEngagementHIT, September 15, 2023

Psychiatric News (9/15) reported, “Youth who are cyberbullied or cyberbully others may be more likely to report disordered eating behaviors than those who are not involved with such bullying,” investigators concluded after analyzing “data from 10,258 participants in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development” study. The findings were published online Sept. 6 in the International Journal of Eating Disorders.

Related Links:

— “Cyberbullying Linked to Eating Disorder Symptoms in Youth, Psychiatric News, September 15, 2023

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