During this election year, many people are feeling stress and anxiety. Taking care of your mental well-being is very important. The American Psychiatric Association has put a page online providing resources to assist you in finding the help you need:

“Address Your Feelings During This Election Cycle and Seek Medical Care if Needed”

It provides four online resources and four crisis and support phone numbers to assist you.

We have added the link to the Featured section of our Links & Publications page, too.

Healio (10/29, Weller) reports, “Stigma and potential career consequences may prevent ED physicians from seeking mental healthcare…poll data discussed during an American College of Emergency Physicians’ teleconference” indicated. Currently, “depression and burnout are common among ED physicians, according to Mark Rosenberg, DO, MBA, FACEP, president-elect of ACEP,” who “cited research indicating about 6,000 ED physicians in the U.S. contemplated suicide and almost 400 had a suicide attempt in 2018.”

Related Links:

— “ED physician’s death by suicide sparks dialogue on culture, policy changes “Madison Weller, Healio, October 29, 2020

HealthDay (10/29) reports, “Maternal use of valproic acid, but not lamotrigine, is associated with an increased risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder” (AD/HD) “among children,” investigators concluded after using “Swedish-registry data to examine the risks for ASD and” AD/HD “in 14,614 children born from 1996 to 2011 to women with epilepsy.” Researchers then examined “maternal-reported first-trimester use of any antiseizure medications and the three most commonly reported individual” medicines “(valproic acid, lamotrigine, and carbamazepine).” The findings were published online Oct. 28 in the journal Neurology.

Related Links:

— “Maternal Use of Valproic Acid Linked to ASD, ADHD in Offspring, HealthDay, October 29, 2020

Psychiatric News (10/29) reports, “Patients with co-occurring depression and substance use disorders may be less likely to receive optimal depression treatment than those with depression alone,” investigators concluded after analyzing data on 53,034 patients who were diagnosed with a depressive disorder in fiscal year 2017 in the US Veterans Health Administration. The findings were published online Oct. 29 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

Related Links:

— “Depression Care Suboptimal for Patients With Comorbid Substance Use Disorders, Study Finds, Psychiatric News, October 29, 2020

Healio (10/28, Gramigna) reports, “Transgender or gender-nonconforming adolescents may have increased risk for various mental health challenges,” investigators concluded after seeking “to compare the mental health status of” transgender or nonconforming “adolescents in China with that of their cisgender peers.” They did so by analyzing “questionnaire data of 12,108 adolescents from 18 secondary schools in one city in China.” The findings of the “cross-sectional survey study” were published online in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Transgender adolescents at increased risk for numerous mental health challenges “Joe Gramigna, Healio, October 28, 2020