STAT (4/5, Gaffney) reports, “Children taken to the emergency” department (ED) “for mental health concerns are more likely to be stuck there for extended stays than they were a decade ago,” investigators concluded after analyzing “national survey data from 2005-2015, focusing on patient length of stay in the” ED. The study also revealed that “Hispanic children are almost three times more likely than white children to experience these delays in care.” The findings were published online in the journal Pediatrics.

Related Links:

— “Kids in the ER are waiting longer for mental health care “Theresa Gaffney, STAT, April 5, 2021

HealthDay (4/5) reports, “Show your baby your love, and you’ll get a kinder, gentler adult child as your reward, a new study suggests.” More than 20 years ago, researchers “began studying the impact on newborns of time spent in physical contact with their mothers,” and they “followed these infants, born in the mid- to late-1990s, for two decades.” Now, the researchers’ “latest results – based on nearly 100 young adults – show that the maternal contact received all those years ago had a measurable impact on social brain functioning decades later, and the ability to empathize and relate to others.” The study was published online in the journal PNAS.

Related Links:

— “Is Empathy Born in Mom’s First Hugs? “Cara Murez, HealthDay, April 5, 2021

HCPlive (4/5, Walter) reports researchers have shown “a complex relationship between post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and drinking alcohol to cope with the symptoms for men in the military.” For the study, investigators “used interview data from 11,474 [participants] who reported at least one lifetime traumatic experience from the National Epidemiologic survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), a face-to-face interview study of a nationally representative sample of adults living in the US between 2004-2005.” The study “compared trauma-exposed men without combat experience to men with military combat experience to identify who would be more likely to endorse drinking alcohol to cope with their PTSD symptoms.” The findings were published online March 17 in the Journal of Dual Diagnostics.

Related Links:

— “New Study Shows Alcohol, PTSD Relationship in Veterans “Kenny Walter, HCPlive, April 5, 2021

The AP (4/5, Johnson) reports the FDA approved Supernus Pharmaceuticals’ Qelbree (viloxazine) for the treatment of children with AD/HD. Unlike most alternatives, “Qelbree is not a stimulant or a controlled substance, making it harder to abuse than older drugs,” which has been an issue for other AD/HD drugs. The AP adds that “viloxazine was sold as an antidepressant in Europe for several decades, but was never approved by the FDA.”

The Hill (4/5, Choi) reports viloxazone is the first new drug approved by the FDA to treat children with AD/HD in more than a decade.

Related Links:

— “FDA Approves New Drug For Children With AD/HD “Linda A. Johnson, AP, April 5, 2021

MedPage Today (4/2, Gever) reported, “Most adults who reported using e-cigarettes indicated that they would like to stop, federal survey data indicated, but ratings of the strength of intention varied by their past histories with tobacco and, in general, were not especially high.” The researchers found that “among 1,988 self-identified e-cigarette users in wave 4 (conducted 2016-2018) of the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) survey, 1,194 (60.1%) said they planned to quit,” although “respondents’ mean ‘level of interest in quitting,’ which they ranked on a 10-point scale (with 10 the strongest), was just 3.9 overall (95% CI 3.8-4.1).” The findings were published in a JAMA Network Open research letter.

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)