PatientEngagementHIT (1/19, Heath) says a report from “patient experience consulting and surveying firm” NRC Health “outlined a future for 2022 defined by still subpar preventive care access and a need for better mental health offerings.” Despite the gains in “access to care in 2021, the NRC Health authors stated that preventive care is still sorely lacking, while the industry confronts a mounting mental health crisis.” While telehealth proved effective at the pandemic’s onset, the report “advised healthcare organizations to critically consider the services and populations for whom telehealth is truly effective,” noting decreased usage for the service among “ophthalmology, dermatology, and orthopedic surgery.”

Related Links:

— “Preventive Care Access, Mental Health Left Wanting Ahead of 2022 ” Sara Heath, Patient Engagement HIT, January 19, 2022

HealthDay (1/19, Mozes) reports, “Homelessness is difficult enough, but when it’s compounded by serious mental health issues,” sometimes “a state-appointed psychiatric conservator can take over, making critical healthcare decisions for a person deemed mentally unstable.” Now, in a study involving “nearly 800 Los Angeles residents, aged 18 to 56, who were involuntarily hospitalized within a non-profit ‘safety net’ psychiatric facility sometime between 2016 and 2018,” investigators found that “nearly half of admittees to psychiatric care were homeless,” and “among that group, about one in every seven were placed under a mental health conservatorship.” Often, these particular patients “faced ‘very lengthy hospital stays,’ averaging about five months, although some went even longer.” The findings were published online Oct. 27 in Psychiatric Services, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

Related Links:

— “Conservatorships Keep the Homeless in Psychiatric Wards Too Long: Study ” Alan Mozes, HealthDay, January 19, 2022

The New York Times (1/19, Barry) reports, “Suicide attempts in the United States showed a ‘substantial and alarming increase’ over the last decade, but one number remained the same, a new study has found: Year in and year out, about 40 percent of people who had recently tried suicide said they were not receiving mental health services.” The study’s “researchers drew on data from 484,732 responses to the federal government’s annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health.” The findings were published January 19 in JAMA Psychiatry.

HCPlive (1/19, Kunzmann) reports, “The annual rate of suicide attempts among US adults increased 17% from 2008 to 2019,” investigators concluded in the analysis, “which also showed that the rate of surveyed suicidal persons who did not know from where to seek treatment more than doubled in the same time.”

MedPage Today (1/19, Grant) also reports.

Related Links:

— “Survey of Americans Who Attempted Suicide Finds Many Aren’t Getting Care “Ellen Barry, The New York Times, January 19, 2022

MedPage Today (1/18, Walker) reports, “While more adverse events (AEs) were reported among those who received the COVID-19 vaccine during clinical trials versus placebo, the number of AEs reported in the placebo group was disproportionately high, a systematic review and meta-analysis found.” According to the review, “about a third of placebo recipients reported at least one systemic AE following both doses,” and these “so-called ‘nocebo responses’ in the active arms likely accounted for 76% of the reported systemic AEs after the first vaccine dose and 52% of AEs after the second vaccine dose.” The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

HealthDay (1/18, Thompson) reports that patients with prostate cancer “treated with the latest forms of hormone blockers were twice as likely to develop depression compared with men treated with older forms of hormone therapy or those who received no such medication at all, results from a new study show.” The findings were published in JAMA.

Related Links:

— “Newer Hormone Treatments for Prostate Cancer May Raise Risk of Depression ” Dennis Thompson, HealthDay, January 18, 2022