HealthDay (2/10, Mundell) reports, “Smartphones, and being on Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok and the like may be taking a big toll on teens’ mental health,” investigators concluded after poring “over dozens of studies.” The findings of the multi-study analysis were published online Feb. 10 in CMAJ.

Related Links:

— “More Evidence Links Social Media Use to Poorer Mental Health in Teens, “E.J. Mundell, HealthDay , February 10, 2020

Reuters (2/10, Rapaport) reports, “Youth suicide rates are dropping in the U.S., but the proportion of teens who have suicidal thoughts or make an attempt remains consistently higher among sexual minorities than among heterosexual young people,” research indicated.

MedPage Today (2/10, Hlavinka) reports, “Substantial recent increases in the percentage of teens and young adults reporting they are not heterosexual were accompanied by a decline in suicide attempts among sexual minority youth,” investigators concluded after examining “survey data” derived from “Massachusetts high schoolers who participated in the federal Youth Risk Behavioral Surveillance Survey” for the years 2009 to 2017. Specifically, those data revealed that “the proportion of adolescents disclosing a minority sexual orientation in 2017 was 14.3%, up from 7.3% in 2009,” while “during the same period, suicide attempts declined among sexual minority as well as heterosexual youth.” Even so, “sexual minorities were still significantly more likely than heterosexual youth to attempt suicide in every year of the study,” research revealed. The findings were published online Feb. 10 in Pediatrics.

Related Links:

— “Suicide rates fall among sexual-minority youth but still outpace heterosexual peers, “Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, February 10, 2020

Medscape (2/10, Yasgur, Subscription Publication) reports, “A national shortage of psychiatric services means a growing number of US emergency departments (ED) are turning to telepsychiatry to fill a critical treatment gap,” data indicate. After surveying “over 5300 EDs,” researchers “found that 20% of those that responded to the survey were utilizing telepsychiatry services, especially in high-volume EDs, those located in rural areas, and those designated as critical access hospitals.” Next, “a second survey of 95 EDs conducted by the same group found that for the majority, telepsychiatry was the only form of emergency psychiatry services, with one quarter receiving such services at least once a day – especially in admission or discharge decisions and transfer coordination.” The authors concluded this suggests that “telepsychiatry fills a critical role by enabling many EDs to access emergency psychiatric services.” The findings were published online Feb. 5 in Psychiatric Services, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

Related Links:

— “Telepsychiatry Filling a Critical Gap in US Emergency Care, “Batya Swift Yasgur, Medscape, February 10, 2020

CNN (2/8, Kaur) reported a study published in Anesthesia and Analgesia suggests “women who have general anesthesia during C-sections are significantly more likely to experience severe post-partum depression resulting in hospitalization, suicidal thoughts or self-harm.” The study examined over 400,000 cases of cesarean delivery from 2006 to 2013 and showed 8% received general anesthesia during the procedure. Among those women, 3% “experienced severe postpartum depression that required hospitalization.” Moreover, they “were also 54% more likely to experience postpartum depression and 91% more likely to have thoughts about suicide or self-harm, compared to those who had regional anesthesia such as spinal blocks or epidurals.”

Related Links:

— “Women who have general anesthesia during C-sections are more likely to experience postpartum depression, study finds, “Harmeet Kaur, CNN, February 8, 2020

The AP (2/8, Burns) reported researchers found that “suicides in the active-duty Air Force surged last year to the highest total in at least three decades, even as the other military services saw their numbers stabilize or decline.” The article added, “The reasons for the Air Force increase are not fully understood, coming after years of effort by all of the military services to counter a problem that seems to defy solution and that parallels increases in suicide in the U.S. civilian population.”

Related Links:

— “Air Force suicides surged last year to highest in 3 decades, “Robert Burns, AP, February 8, 2020