Psychiatric News (2/13) reports, “Psychiatric medications do not appear to interfere with weight loss in” patients with obesity “who have had bariatric surgery,” investigators concluded after analyzing “data on 190 patients who had bariatric surgery,” 61 of whom “were taking psychiatric medications before surgery, and 50” who “continued taking psychiatric medications one year after surgery.” The findings were published in the January/February issue of Psychosomatics, the journal of the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Psychiatric Medications Not Associated With Poorer Weight Loss Following Bariatric Surgery, Psychiatric News, February 13, 2020

TIME (2/12, Oaklander) reports on “Mental Health First Aid at Work, a training that the National Council for Behavioral Health provides, for a cost, to a growing number of corporations.” The article follows the experiences of some employees of Delta Air Lines who took the training in order to learn how to “spot symptoms and warning signs of possible mental health concerns in a colleague, reach out and offer initial help, then guide them to professional help and the resources the company offers, like short-term counseling through the free employee assistance program (EAP) and a confidential app that lets you chat immediately with behavioral health coaches.” Such mental health training is growing among organizations. For example, “the Center for Workplace Mental Health at the American Psychiatric Association Foundation is developing a digital training for managers called ‘Notice. Talk. Act. at Work,’ which teaches the early warning signs of mental health issues and how to have empathetic, compassionate conversations.”

Related Links:

— “How Companies Teach Their Employees First Aid for Mental Health, “Mandy Oaklander, TIME, February 12, 2020

MedPage Today (2/12, Hlavinka) reports, “Men who closely aligned with masculinity norms were more than twice as likely to die by suicide as men who did not,” research indicated. For the study, investigators identified “20,745 adolescents recruited in 1995 as part of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health),” then “matched with death records in 2014.” The study revealed that “‘high-traditional masculinity’ men – or those with at least a 73% probability of being male based on their responses to questions about things like not crying, physical fitness, and fighting – were more likely to die by suicide than men who did not identify as strongly with such norms.” At the same time, “so-called high-traditional masculinity men were also 1.45 times less likely to report suicidal ideation.” The findings were published online Feb. 12 in a research letter in JAMA Psychiatry. Healio (2/12, Gramigna) also covers the study.

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

Healio (2/11, Gramigna) reports, “Risk reduction through family therapy, or RRFT, among adolescents resulted in within-group improvements in substance use problems and PTSD symptoms compared with treatment as usual,” researchers concluded in a study that randomized a “total of 61 participants…to RRFT and 63 to treatment as usual.” The findings were published online Feb. 5 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Adolescent exposure-based treatment safe, feasible for co-occurring substance abuse, PTSD symptoms, “Joe Gramigna, Healio, February 11, 2020

Healio (2/11, Gramigna) reports, “Shorter sleep duration among children was associated with increased risk for depression, anxiety, impulsive behavior and poor cognitive performance,” investigators concluded after examining “data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, which included structural MRI data from 11,067 individuals aged 9 to 11 years.” The findings were published online Feb. 3 in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Children with less sleep experience increased depression, anxiety, decreased cognitive performance, “Joe Gramigna, Healio, February 11, 2020