Healio (6/7, Downey) reports, “Family member involvement or previous diagnoses of depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder [OCD] is most likely how extremists and conspiracy theorists end up in psychiatric care, Jack S. Rozel, MD, said” in an interview conducted at the American Psychiatric Association 2022 Annual Meeting. Dr. Rozel said, “Someone isn’t going to walk in and want to talk about their racist beliefs or antisemitic ideology.” Rather, “more likely than not, they’re already coming in for depression or OCD and, incidentally, you will see their extremist belief systems,” Dr. Rozel added.

Related Links:

— “VIDEO: Extremists typically do not seek help on their own “Ken Downey Jr., Healio, June 7, 2022

Psychiatric News (6/7) reports, “Patients with schizophrenia who switch from oral antipsychotics to long-acting injectables (LAIs) within the first three years of treatment can reduce their risk of symptom relapse, future rehospitalizations, and mortality,” while “patients who had been taking oral medications for three years or more prior to switching showed no significant improvements outside of improved medication adherence,” investigators concluded in a study that “identified 678 patients who were having a psychotic episode and were switched from oral medication to an LAI during hospitalization; they continued to receive the LAI after discharge.” The findings were published online in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Patients With Schizophrenia Switched Early to LAIs Show Markedly Better Long-Term Outcomes, Psychiatric News, June 7, 2022

HCPlive (6/6, Grossi) reports research indicates that “compared with healthy controls, youth with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) exhibit sleep disturbance on subjective sleep measures but sleep disturbance is not observed with objective sleep measures in this population.” Included in the study were “26 youth with OCD and 35 youth who served as healthy controls.” The findings were presented at SLEEP 2022.

Related Links:

— “
Objective Measures Show Youth with OCD Do Not Experience Increased Sleep Disturbance “Giuliana Grossi, HCPlive, June 6, 2022

Healio (6/6, Marabito) reports, “Adults with autism reported poorer access to healthcare, poorer communication with physicians and a higher prevalence of chronic conditions compared with adults without autism,” investigators concluded in a study that “administered an anonymized, cross-sectional, self-report questionnaire to 1,285 adults with autism and 1,364 adults without autism in the U.K. between July 2019 and January 2021.” The findings were published online May 26 in the journal Molecular Autism.

Related Links:

— “Adults with autism report poorer health care “Maria Marabito, Healio, June 6, 2022

According to the Washington Post (6/6, Villegas), in the days since the school shootings in Uvalde, TX, “therapists have flooded the town, offering counseling to grief-stricken residents.” In the next few weeks or months, however, “most of those support organizations will leave,” and even though “several public and private practices in the town offer behavioral and mental health services, experts say Uvalde lacks inpatient treatment options, and enough psychiatrists specializing in children and adolescents.” Despite Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R-TX) promises to increase the region’s mental health resources, “a recent report by the nonprofit Mental Health America ranked the Lone Star State 51st in the nation on access to mental health care – a ranking that weighs access to insurance and treatment, quality and cost of insurance, access to special education, and mental health workforce availability.”

Related Links:

— “The Washington Post (requires login and subscription)