MedPage Today (6/12, Henderson) reports, “Parents of children in palliative care placed the highest value on the child’s quality of life (QoL), but with considerable individual-level variation and substantial change over time, researchers found.” Data from a cohort study of 680 parents of 603 patients show that “QoL garnered the highest mean importance score among the five goals of care assessed at initiation of care.” Next highest importance “to parents was pursuit of health, followed by pursuit of comfort, disease modification, and life extension.” The findings were published in JAMA Pediatrics.

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

Healio (6/12, VanDewater) reports, “From 2018 to 2021, psychiatric disorders were the primary reason for a small portion of physician-assisted suicides in the Netherlands and Belgium,” according to a poster presented at the American Psychiatric Association 2023 Annual Meeting. For the study, researchers “analyzed annual reports from the Regional Euthanasia Review Committees on Euthanasia from the Netherlands and the Reports to the Legislative Chamber by the Federal Control and Evaluation Committee for Euthanasia in Belgium from 2018 to 2021.” The study revealed that “psychiatric disorders accounted for 4% or less of physician-assisted suicides.”

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— “Euthanasia for psychiatric reasons uncommon in Belgium, Netherlands,” Kalie VanDewater, Healio, June 12, 2023

MedPage Today (6/12, George) reports, “The shingles vaccine may be linked with a 20% lower dementia risk,” according to “an analysis of 300,000 health records.” The study revealed that “receiving the herpes zoster vaccine (Zostavax) reduced the probability of a new dementia diagnosis over seven years by 3.5 percentage points,” which “corresponded to a 19.9% relative reduction in dementia risk.” The findings were published online in a “preprint paper on medRxiv, which has not yet been peer reviewed.”

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

Healio (6/12, Welsh) reports, “Loneliness frequently plays an important mental health role for women who experience perinatal depression,” investigators concluded in the findings of a 27-study, 537-woman meta-analysis published online Feb. 28 in the journal BMC Psychiatry.

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— “Loneliness contributes to perinatal depression,” Erin T. Welsh, MA, Healio, June 12, 2023

HealthDay (6/9, Gotkine) reported, “A school-based, trauma-informed group intervention is beneficial for alleviating trauma-related mental health harms among girls in high school,” researchers concluded after conducting “a randomized trial involving 3,749 Chicago public high school girls to examine whether a school-based group counseling program can mitigate trauma-related mental health harms.” The findings were published online June 7 in the journal Science Advances.

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— “School-Based Group Intervention Effective for Mental Health in Teen Girls,” Elana Gotkine, Health Day, June 9, 2023