MedPage Today (8/17, George) reports research indicates that patients with Parkinson’s disease “using pimavanserin (Nuplazid), a novel antipsychotic used to help manage Parkinson’s hallucinations and delusions, had an increased risk of 30-day hospitalization and higher mortality for up to a year.” The study compared “2,186 people who were prescribed pimavanserin and 18,212 who were not.” The findings were published online in the journal Neurology.

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

HealthDay (8/16) reports, “Almost half of pediatric opioid prescriptions are considered high-risk by one or more metric, and high-volume prescribers write more than half of the prescriptions, according to” researchers who analyzed 4,027,701 prescriptions and “found that 3.5 percent of U.S. children and young adults had one or more dispensed opioid prescription. Overall, 41.8 of the prescriptions for opioid-naive patients exceeded a three-day supply and 3.8 percent exceeded a seven-day supply. For young children, 8.4 percent of prescriptions were for tramadol and 7.7 percent were for codeine.” The data were published in Pediatrics.

Related Links:

— “Almost Half of Pediatric Opioid Prescriptions Considered High-Risk
“Physician’s Briefing Staff, HealthDay, August 16, 2021

HealthDay (8/16, Mann) reports research indicates that “screen time should be replaced by ‘green time’ for optimizing the well-being of” children, investigators concluded after examining responses “from surveys of more than 577,000 11-, 13- and 15-year-olds in 42 European and North American countries.” The findingswere published online in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health.

Related Links:

— “More ‘Green Time,’ Less Screen Time Boosts Kids’ Mental Health “Denise Mann , HealthDay, August 16, 2021

MedPage Today (8/16, Monaco) reports, “Use of antipsychotics during pregnancy did not seem to have a significant developmental impact on babies,” researchers concluded “in an analysis of more than 300,000 mother-child pairs.” The study revealed that children of mothers “who were taking an antipsychotic during pregnancy showed no increased risk for developing” attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) or autism spectrum disorder (ASD), “or of being born small for gestational age.” The findings were published online Aug. 16 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Psychiatric News (8/16) reports that even though “there was a small increased risk of preterm birth of children exposed to prenatal antipsychotics, additional analysis suggested this may be due to maternal psychiatric illness and not the medication.”

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

Healio (8/13, Gramigna) reported, “College students had significantly higher alcohol and cannabis use, depressive symptoms and anger during the COVID-19 lockdown compared with before it,” researchers concluded in a 4,749-participant survey study, the findings of which were published online ahead of print in the October issue of the Journal of Psychiatric Research.

Related Links:

— “Alcohol, cannabis use higher among college students after COVID-19 lockdowns “Joe Gramigna, Healio, August 13, 2021