Healio (4/14, Gramigna) reports, “Nurses in the United States had a significantly increased risk for suicide compared with the general population,” investigators concluded after using “the National Violent Death Reporting System to analyze U.S. data of 159,372 suicides between 2007 and 2018.” Next, the researchers “created sex-specific suicide incidence estimates for nurses, physicians and the general population of those aged 30 years or older using workforce denominators.”

HealthDay (4/14) reports the study “determined that the suicide incidence among nurses was 17.1 per 100,000, compared to 8.6 per 100,000 among women in the general public, a doubling of risk.” The findingswere published online April 14 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Nurses at significantly increased suicide risk compared with general U.S. population “Joe Gramigna, Healio, April 14, 2021

The New York Times (4/14, Goodnough) reports that more than 87,000 Americans “died of drug overdoses over the 12-month period that ended in September, according to preliminary federal data, eclipsing the toll from any year since the opioid epidemic began in the 1990s.” The surge “represents an increasingly urgent public health crisis, one that has drawn less attention and fewer resources while the nation has battled the coronavirus pandemic.” The pandemic “unquestionably exacerbated the trend, which grew much worse last spring: The biggest jump in overdose deaths took place in April and May, when fear and stress were rampant, job losses were multiplying and the strictest lockdown measures were in effect.” The data were published in a Vital Statistics Rapid Release document from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.

Related Links:

— “Overdose Deaths Have Surged During the Pandemic, C.D.C. Data Shows “Abby Goodnough, The New York Times, April 14, 2021

Medscape (4/13, Davenport, Subscription Publication) reports, “The World Psychiatric Association (WPA) has released new global telemedicine guidelines” that emphasize the “need for international collaboration in psychiatry.” These guidelines, “which also address concerns over data security and device intercompatibility, were presented at the virtual European Psychiatric Association 2021 Congress.” Medscape adds that the “guidelines are available in the United States, Canada, Australia, and India, including the 2018 Best Practices in Videoconferencing-Based Telemental Health, released by the American Psychiatric Association and the American Telemedicine Association.”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

Healio (4/13, Gramigna) reports, “Certain cognitive deficits in childhood were distinctively linked to different psychopathological symptoms among young people,” researchers concluded in a study that sought to assess “the specificity of associations between attention, working memory and inhibition in childhood and borderline personality disorder,” and “psychosis, depression and hypomania in adolescence and young adulthood.” Investigators analyzed data from “6,333 individuals for any psychopathological measures between ages 11 and 12 years, 4,903 between ages 17 and 18 years and 2,963 between ages 22 to 23 years.” The findings of the cohort study were published online April 7 in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Childhood cognitive deficits play role in later mental health problems “Joe Gramigna, Healio, April 13, 2021

HealthDay (4/12, Preidt) reports, “Ovarian cancer is a tough diagnosis to cope with, and now a new study finds these patients face a much higher risk of depression and other mental” illnesses. In addition, “the emotional anguish exacted a significant toll: The researchers also found it was associated with an increased risk of death during the study period among these women.” The study is “scheduled for presentation during the AACR’s virtual annual meeting, held from April 10 to 15.”

Related Links:

— “Ovarian Cancer Diagnosis Can Take Big Toll on Women’s Mental Health ” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, April 12, 2021