Forbes (4/12) contributor Laurel Farrer wrote, “Remote workers often experience symptoms of anxiety and depression at a higher rate than people commuting into traditional office spaces,” research indicated. Even though “in the 2019 State of Remote Work report produced by Buffer…thousands of remote workers surveyed rave about the work-life balance, schedule flexibility, and work performance,” they also list the “downsides of location flexibility.” For example, “49% of remote workers note that their biggest struggle is wellness-related.” For example, the report found that “insomnia and sleep disturbance are common, along with increased fatigue, irritation, sadness and feelings of disconnection.”

Related Links:

— “Are Home Offices Fueling A Mental Health Crisis?, “Laurel Farrer, Forbes, April 12, 2019

MD Magazine (4/12, Campbell) reported a 347-study review “has identified several risk factors and limitations of past articles that examine physician suicides and its causes.” According to MD Magazine, “unique risks included specialized knowledge, access to lethal methods, and specialties.” Other “less-studied risks included personality traits, adverse childhood events, relationship status with a partner, relationship with parents, economic burdens, religiosity, and cultural upbringing.” The findings were presented at the ACP 2019 Internal Medicine Annual Meeting.

Related Links:

— “Physician Suicide Remains a Misunderstood Problem, “Patrick Campbell, MD Magazine, April 12, 2019

The New York Times (4/14, Steinhauer) reports, “Three veterans killed themselves last week on Department of Veterans Affairs health care properties, barely a month after President Trump announced an aggressive task force to address the unremitting problem of veteran suicide.” The Times says the “executive order was a tacit acknowledgment of what the deaths rendered obvious: The department has not made a dent in stemming the approximately 20 suicide deaths every day among veterans.” The article adds that “veterans are in many ways an amplification of the same factors that drive suicide in the broader American population: a fragmented health care system, a shortage of mental health resources, especially in rural areas, a lack of funding for suicide research and easy access to guns.”

Related Links:

— “V.A. Officials, and the Nation, Battle an Unrelenting Tide of Veteran Suicides, ” Jennifer Steinhauer, The New York Times, April 14, 2019

Medscape (4/11, Yasgur, Subscription Publication) reports, “Suicidal ideation (SI) occurs more frequently in adolescents with superior cognitive performance than in youngsters with lower cognition,” researchers concluded after studying “more than 6000 typically developing community-based adolescents aged 11 to 21 years and” then comparing “the cognitive and social functioning of those with and those without SI.” The findings were published online March 28 in the British Journal of Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

Healio (4/10, Demko) reports, “In 2016, past-month daily cannabis use was about three times higher among individuals with serious psychological distress than among those without,” researchers concluded after “using data from the 2008 to 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health” to examine “the prevalence of daily cannabis use among U.S. adults (n=356,413) with and without serious psychological distress, as measured by the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale in 2016, and” then examining “trends in daily cannabis use by past-month psychological distress status from 2008 to 2016.” The findings were published in the April issue of the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

Related Links:

— “Daily cannabis use more common among people with psychological distress, “Savannah Demko, Healio, April 10, 2019