A more than 5,000-word New York Times (11/13, A1, Fink, Subscription Publication) analysis examines mental healthcare for detainees at Guantánamo Bay, saying that the “United States defends the quality of mental health care” at the prison as “humane and appropriate,” while “Detainees, human rights groups and doctors consulting for defense teams offer more critical assessments, describing it as negligent or ineffective in many cases.” The article highlights Lt. Cmdr. Shay Rosecrans tenure at Guantánamo, a Navy officer who “led one of the mental health teams” at the prison “over the past 15 years.” The Times notes psychiatrists and psychologists assigned to the prison “received little training for the assignment” and often reported feeling “unprepared to tend to men they were told were ‘the worst of the worst.’”

Related Links:

— “Where Even Nightmares Are Classified:
Psychiatric Care at Guantánamo,”Sheri Fink, The New York Times, November 13, 2016.

In a nearly 2,000-word piece titled “How Can I Afford Mental Health Care?,” the New York Magazine (11/11, Cowles) quoted Harsh Trivedi, MD, chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s Council on Healthcare Systems and Financing, who said, “Of all Americans who are clinically depressed and need help, less than half of them are diagnosed, let alone get any kind of help for it.” Dr. Trivedi added, “Of those who do get diagnosed with clinical depression, only about 30 percent get sufficient treatment to return to their normal functioning,” a “low percentage” that “has a lot to do with lack of access to care and not being able to use your health benefits to cover it.”

Related Links:

— “How Can I Afford Mental Health Care?,”Charlotte Cowles, The New York Magazine, November 11, 2016.

CNN (11/11, Ravitz) reported that last Tuesday’s election results have resulted in an “unexpected flood of calls to crisis and suicide prevention services.”

The Christian Science Monitor (11/13, Hoover) reported, “Following Mr. Trump’s victory, services like the National Suicide Prevention Hotline, the Crisis Text Line, and the Trevor Project, which focuses on helping LGBTQ youth, fielded hundreds or thousands of inquiries from Americans who feared they might lose health care and civil rights under a Trump administration, or” encounter “additional harassment from a sect of his increasingly vocal and radical supporters.”

Related Links:

— “Calls to crisis and suicide prevention hotlines surge post-election,”Jessica Ravitz, CNN, November 11, 2016.

Healio (11/11, Oldt) reported, “Fewer daylight hours between sunrise and sunset was associated with poorer mental health,” researchers found after studying “19 weather and pollution variables with self-reported mental health data for university students participating in mental health treatment (n = 16,452).” The findings were published in the November issue of the Journal of Affective Disorders.

Related Links:

— “Less daylight may lead to poorer mental health, Healio, November 11, 2016.

Reuters (11/10, Doyle) reports that researchers have found that “during pregnancy, women and their male partners sometimes report insomnia or insufficient sleep, which may be tied to depression.” Nearly “half of women reported that they slept more than usual during pregnancy, but did not have better quality sleep, said senior author Tiina Paunio.” The investigators found that “overall, 12 percent of women and 15 percent of men had either insomnia or too little sleep.” The findings were published online in Sleep Medicine.

Related Links:

— “Insomnia, poor sleep quality common for men and women during pregnancy,” Kathryn Doyle, Reuters, November 10, 2016.