Monday, January 12, 2004

New Communication Tool Empowers Patients with Schizophrenia
PR Newswire story at PsycPORT - "A new study published today in the leading psychiatry journal The British Journal of Psychiatry shows that a simple communication tool called 2-COM, which facilitates patient-psychiatrist communication, enables patients to play a greater role in contributing to the overall management of their condition and can lead to changes in how patients are treated. The results also found that 2-COM was of greatest value to those patients who are experiencing the most problems with the management of their disease."  
  

Managing Crisis: The Role of Primary Care (UK)
Article in Family Medicine (Adobe Acrobat format) - " More than 30% of patients with serious mental illness in the United Kingdom now receive all their health care solely from primary care. This study explored the process of managing acute mental health crises from the dual perspective of patients and primary care health professionals."  
  

Eating disorders and the serotonin connection: State, trait and developmental effects
A paper (in Adobe Acrobat format) in the Journal of Psychiatry & Neuroscience by Howard Steiger of the Eating Disorders Program at the Douglas Hospital Psychiatry Department, McGill University - " Alterations in brain serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine [5-HT]) function are thought to contribute to diverse aspects of eating disorders, including binge eating, perfectionism, impulsivity and mood-regulation problems. In addition, 5-HT anomalies in individuals with eating disorders are believed to have multiple determinants associated with secondary (state-related) effects of their nutritional status, hereditary effects (related to such trait variations as impulsivity or perfectionism) and, possibly, long-term neurobiologic sequelae of developmental stressors (such as childhood abuse). On the strength of the available neurobiologic and genetic data, this paper presents the idea that 5-HT variations in those with eating disorders represent (1) a structured coaggregation of biologic, psychologic and social influences and (2) converging state, trait and developmental effects. Data are taken to support a multidimensional model of 5-HT function in eating disorders that, it is argued, can serve as a prototype for etiologic modelling, diagnostic classification and clinical decision-making bearing not only upon eating disorders but also upon other psychiatric disturbances."  
  

Knowing a person has schizophrenia affects police officers’ attitudes
Item in Mental Health Notes from CMHA/Ontario - "Police officers responded to hypothetical scenarios differently when they were told some people in the scenarios had schizophrenia: they saw people with schizophrenia as more dangerous and less responsible for their situation, as well as more worthy of help, according to a University of Chicago study. ... The results showed that when officers are told that a person has a mental illness, their attitudes and decisions are affected. The group who were told the person had schizophrenia had a higher perception of dangerousness than the group who had no label applied. They also felt more pity, were more willing to help, and believed the person with schizophrenia to be less responsible for their situation. The officers were more likely to perceive the person in need of assistance as credible if that person had schizophrenia, but were less likely to consider victims credible if they had schizophrenia."  
  

World Health Organization calls on nations to invest in mental health
Item in the Mental Health Notes newsletter of CMHA/Ontario - "The World Health Organization (WHO) has called on the world to substantially increase its investment in mental health. The WHO has released a report, 'Investing in Mental Health,' as part of their global campaign to close the gap between the high rates of untreated mental disorders and the resources available for prevention, treatment and protection of the rights of people with mental illnesses. Despite the numbers of people involved directly – 450 million people around the world have a mental or behavioural disorder – almost 90 percent of those living in developing countries do not receive treatment, while 44 to 70 percent do not have or are denied access in developed countries." See also the full report, Investing in Mental Health, and a document on the Mental Health Global Action Programme at the WHO web site (both in Adobe Acrobat format).  
  

Mental Health: Double-Teaming Depression
January 6 New York Times story - "Cognitive therapy and medication are regarded as equally effective in treating depression. But they work in very different ways, according to a study released yesterday comparing brain scans of depressed patients before and after treatment. The study, which was published in The Archives of General Psychiatry, involved 14 patients who attended 15 to 20 sessions of therapy and 13 comparably depressed patients who were treated with paroxetine, an antidepressant better known by its brand name, Paxil." "nyt" See also the Health Central item posted here last week.  
  

Many with Eating Disorders Lack Mental Health Care
Reuters Health story at Yahoo - "In any given year, around one percent of young females throughout the world suffer from an eating disorder, but few receive mental health care for their condition, researchers in The Netherlands estimate. The estimates are based on a review of international research, mostly in Europe and the U.S., suggesting that about 0.3 percent of girls and young women have anorexia in a given year. But the number seen in mental health care may amount to only about one third of those cases, according to findings published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders."  
  

Human services rally planned (Kentucky)
Courier-Journal story - "Hundreds of disabled and elderly people and their advocates plan to go to Frankfort on Wednesday to support better funding for human services, and they'll hear from Gov. Ernie Fletcher. Organizers hope to focus attention on what they say are the urgent needs of some 874,000 Kentuckians who are frail, elderly or have disabilities including mental illness and mental retardation. They are calling themselves the 874K Coalition..."  
  

A Biological Basis for Repressed Memories
Article at About Mental Health - "Research reveals for the first time the biological mechanism that the brain uses to block unwanted memories. The study, published in the journal Science, demonstrates how unpleasant memories can be repressed. Psychology Professor John Gabrieli, a co-author of the study, is quoted in a Stanford University press release as stating 'The big news is that we've shown how the human brain blocks an unwanted memory, that there is such a mechanism and it has a biological basis. It gets you past the possibility that there's nothing in the brain that would suppress a memory – that it was all a misunderstood fiction..."  
  

Shelters bulging at the seams (Maine)
Story at Maine Today on demand for space at Maine's homeless shelters - "...Mary Ann Gleason, president of the Maine Coalition to End Homelessness and executive director of the York County Initiative to End Homelessness, said the demand for shelter beds across the state and the nation has skyrocketed. The rise in demand comes in part because federal programs that built low-income housing in the mid-1980s were eliminated and because federal rent subsidies have failed to keep up with growing demand."  
  

Local mental health board offices to be relocated (Ohio)
Marietta Times story - " The administrative offices of the Washington County Mental Health and Addiction Recovery Board will move next week, in the latest of budgets cuts made by the board. In the last year, staff positions and hours have been reduced, and patients have been turned away from the mental health clinic because of growing expenses and a tightening budget..."  
  

Mental health facility closure leaves gap (Florida)
NBC2 (Lee County) story - "It has helped people through hard times for 13 years, but now a community mental health facility is going through its own hard times. The non-profit group had no choice, but to close Genesis III’s doors December 31st, after losing nearly half of its income over the past two years. They say the money that once was used to defray costs for people who needed mental health services just wasn't available anymore."