HealthDay (9/21, Reinberg) reports, “Living within a few blocks of a shooting increases the risk that a child will end up visiting the emergency department [ED] for mental health-related problems,” investigators concluded after studying data on some 54,300 patients. The study revealed “significant increases in mental health-related” ED “visits in the two weeks after a neighborhood shooting, especially among kids who lived closest to it and those exposed to multiple shootings.” The findings were published online Sept. 20 in JAMA Pediatrics.

Related Links:

— “Neighborhood Gun Violence Means Worse Mental Health for Kids “Steven Reinberg, HealthDay, September 21, 2021

According to HealthDay (9/20, Reinberg), hospitalized people with opioid use disorder (OUD) appear to “die at a rate similar to people who have a heart attack after leaving the hospital,” investigators concluded after examining “data on more than 6,600 Medicaid patients treated in Oregon hospitals between April 2015 and December 2017.” The study revealed that “nearly 8% of patients addicted to opioids died within 12 months of hospital discharge.” The findings were published in the September issue of the Journal of Addiction Medicine.

Related Links:

— “Opioid Use Disorder Is as Deadly as Heart Attack: Study ” Steven Reinberg, HealthDay, September 20, 2021

Psychiatric News (9/20) reports, “A program that teaches parents how to engage with babies identified to be at high risk of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may reduce the likelihood of the children’s developing the disorder,” investigators concluded in a study that tested the “iBASIS–Video Interaction to Promote Positive Parenting” intervention among “103 families of babies aged nine to 15 months old showing behaviors associated with ASD, as measured by the Social Attention and Communication Surveillance–Revised…12-month checklist.” The findings were published online Sept. 20 in JAMA Pediatrics.

Related Links:

— “Childhood trauma increases depressive episode risk during perinatal period, Psychiatric News, September 20, 2021

Healio (9/20, Gramigna) reports, “Childhood trauma appeared linked to a depressive episode during the perinatal period in adulthood,” investigators concluded after analyzing “data of 3,252 women who completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire at a maternity department between November 2011 and June 2016 as part of a French multicenter prospective cohort study.” The findings were published online Sept. 7 in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Childhood trauma increases depressive episode risk during perinatal period “Joe Gramigna, Healio, September 21, 2021

In a letter to the New York Times (9/16), University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine professor emeritus and psychiatrist Victor Reus says he “was disappointed” with a Times article highlighting potentially dangerous use of antipsychotic drugs in nursing homes because it failed to mention “the fact that psychiatry as a profession has recognized this issue and directly addressed it in an American Psychiatric Association treatment guideline that was formulated by an expert team that I chaired in 2015-16.” Reus concludes, “It is important to identify and critique practices such as those described, but it is also important to remind clinicians and caregivers that formal professional standards exist and should be adopted.”

Related Links:

— “The Use of Antipsychotic Drugs in Nursing Homes, The New York Times, September 16, 2021