Tuesday, May 17, 2005

New Drug Limits May Put Mentally Ill In Danger (Florida) TBO News story - "Mental health professionals are warning that the state's decision to change the process for prescribing powerful medications for their patients could endanger those patients' health and possibly the safety of others. The warning comes after the advocates lost a battle last week to maintain open access for mental health drugs under Florida's Medicaid program. The Legislature mandated that the drugs be included in a program aimed at saving nearly $300 million in the $2.5 billion drug program in the coming fiscal year. The psychotropic drugs are used to treat thousands of Medicaid-eligible patients with mental illness. The drugs often are very expensive, as in the case of Zyprexa and Seroquel, both used to treat bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. For years, they have been exempted from limits to prescription drugs. "  
  

Study shows non-children's hospitals serve majority of US children University of Vermont press release - "A study comparing U.S. pediatric hospitalizations showed that only one-third of a total 1.7 million hospitalizations in the year 2000 were to children's hospitals with specialized pediatric expertise. The results were presented today by University of Vermont Professor of Pediatrics Richard Wasserman, M.D., at the 2005 Pediatric Academic Societies' Annual Meeting. Wasserman and colleagues examined data from the 2000 Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Kids' Inpatient Database for the study. The team found that a total of 64.4 percent of hospitalizations for children ages 1 to 17 were to non-children's hospitals. More than one in 20 of these hospitalizations was for a mental health admission."  
  

Minority youths self-esteem grows, not shrinks over time Brief Blackwell Publishing press release - "Research on the self-esteem of youths has primarily focused on White, middle-class adolescents, excluding the experiences of ethnically and socioeconomically diverse teens. A new study published in the latest issue of the Journal of Research on Adolescence focused on Black, Latino, and Asian American students from lower and working class families at a public high school in New York City. The researchers found that on average the self-esteem of these students increased. And contrary to other common assumptions, both boys and girls experienced similar trajectories. 'Black adolescents reported higher self-esteem, while Asian American adolescents reported lower self-esteem, compared to their Latino peers,' the authors state. Latinos experienced the sharpest increase over time creating self-esteem that was comparable with their Black peers."  
  

St. John's Wort only minimally effective in relieving major depression, review confirms Health Behavior News story based on a study published in The Cochrane Library - "St. John’s Wort, the herbal medicinal long thought to relieve symptoms of depression, provides only minor benefits in patients with the most acute depression and perhaps no benefit for those with chronic depression. The updated review of 37 trials, involving 4,925 patients, reaffirms earlier findings that St. John’s Wort reduces symptoms of mild-to-moderate depression among adults in a manner similar to antidepressant drugs; causes fewer side effects than some of the older antidepressants on the market; and causes slightly fewer side effects compared with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, the class of antidepressants most recently developed."  
  

Life at the Top in America Isn't Just Better, It's Longer New York Times article - " Class is a potent force in health and longevity in the United States. The more education and income people have, the less likely they are to have and die of heart disease, strokes, diabetes and many types of cancer. Upper-middle-class Americans live longer and in better health than middle-class Americans, who live longer and better than those at the bottom. And the gaps are widening, say people who have researched social factors in health. As advances in medicine and disease prevention have increased life expectancy in the United States, the benefits have disproportionately gone to people with education, money, good jobs and connections. They are almost invariably in the best position to learn new information early, modify their behavior, take advantage of the latest treatments and have the cost covered by insurance." [Viewing New York Times resources requires registration, which is free].  
  

Oregon needs to replace its mental hospital, governor says Seattle Times story - "The Oregon State Hospital, one of the oldest, most dilapidated state mental institutions in the United States, should be torn down and rebuilt because renovating it would cost too much, a consulting firm said in a report issued yesterday. The San Francisco-based firm of KMDArchitects said the hospital buildings — some crumbling — don't comply with modern building codes and don't meet energy-conservation and earthquake-safety standards. ... The consulting firm specializes in designing mental-health treatment facilities. Its report doesn't deal with the design or cost of building a replacement hospital. That part is to come in a second phase, due to be finished next winter."  
  

Living in rural areas and mental health risk, study (UK) Medical News Today (UK) story - "Residents of rural areas may be at increased risk of mental health problems. If so, public health programs aimed at preventing poor mental health may have to be customized for delivery to rural areas. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between residing in a rural area and frequent mental distress, which is one indicator of poor mental health." See also the full study (Adobe Acrobat format).  
  

AFSP Partners with Federal Health Agencies to Develop Network of Intervention Research Centers to Prevent Suicide US Newswire press release - "The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) has announced that it will co-sponsor the Developing Centers on Interventions for the Prevention of Suicide (DCIPS), a National Institutes of Health initiative that will produce a network of three centers for suicide prevention and research. DCIPS centers will continue for five years, providing support for a network for treatment and prevention studies that could address the needs of high-risk patients recruited from across centers. The initiative began as a federal effort led by the National Institute of Mental Health, with co-funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. AFSP is the sole private organization in this public and private partnership."  
  

Controversial mental health reforms back on the agenda (UK) Guardian story - "The government today pressed ahead with its controversial overhaul of mental health law, condemned as draconian by MPs and peers. The mental health bill will take forward draft legislation that proposed the extension of compulsory treatment to cover people receiving care in the community as well as those in hospital. The draft bill was condemned by an expert parliamentary committee, which warned it would erode civil liberties by imposing compulsory treatment on people who had done no wrong and would not benefit from it."  
  

Mental hospital prognosis in doubt (Illinois) Chicago Tribune story - "A flurry of lobbying by mental health advocates and a push by legislators won a reprieve last spring for the Tinley Park Mental Health Center, which Gov. Rod Blagojevich wanted to shutter to help close a massive budget hole. This year, budget projections remain dire, state officials still want to close the hospital and some advocates believe the state will eventually sell the only facility for mentally ill patients from the South Side to Kankakee and Grundy Counties. As a result, many physicians and advocates are lobbying the Illinois Department of Human Services to ensure that enough money is allocated to programs in communities. Others say they will still fight to keep the center open, on behalf of employees and a group of people among the most vulnerable: those with severe mental illness who cannot pay for treatment." See also, at the same source, Advocates fear loss of mental center funds. [Viewing Chicago Tribune resources requires registration, which is free].