Monday, October 25, 2004

Cognitive Enhancement, Enriched Supportive Therapy Helpful in Schizophrenia
Medscape Medical News story - "Cognitive enhancement therapy is more beneficial than state-of-the-art enriched supportive therapy in reducing disability from schizophrenia, according to the results of a two-year randomized trial published in the September issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry." "med"  
  

Special Populations, Emerging Treatments and Persistent Challenges
Article in the October Psychiatric Times - "Over the past quarter-century, new treatments for depression have emerged that are as effective as original pharmacotherapies but have fewer side effects. Yet, full remission and access to care remain out of reach for so many people. In this introduction to our Depressive Disorders Special Report, Dr. Golden encourages readers to see the glass as half-full..." See also, in the same issue, Depression and Obesity: A Complex Relationship (a new CME unit), Psychotherapy and Combined Therapy for Depressive Disorders in Later Life, and Novel Antipsychotics for Treatment-Resistant Depression.  
  

Self-Reported Frequent Mental Distress Among Adults -- United States, 1993--2001
Article in the current Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, published by the Center for Disease Control - "Poor mental health is a major source of distress, disability, and social burden; in any given year, as many as one in five adults in the United States has a mental disorder. To identify differences among populations and factors contributing to poor mental health, CDC examined the prevalence of frequent mental distress (FMD) among U.S. adults by race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status (SES), and sex, by using aggregate data from Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) surveys for 1993--2001. This report describes the results of that analysis, which indicated that the prevalence of FMD varied among racial/ethnic populations and increased substantially among whites and blacks. In addition, FMD was reported more frequently by women and by persons with low SES within each racial/ethnic population. Targeting adverse socioeconomic risk factors and improving access to mental health services might decrease FMD among adults and reduce racial/ethnic disparities in mental health..." See also the related news story at WebMD.  
  

New Yorkers' mental health visits rose little after 9/11
Center for the Advancement of Health press release at EurekAlert - "New Yorkers' use of mental health services rose only slightly during the year after the September 11, 2001, World Trade Center attacks compared with the year before the attacks, a recent study suggests. But the number of mental health visits among people already receiving treatment increased after the attacks. The study is one of the few to look at long-term use of community mental health services within a population after a major catastrophic event, say Joseph A. Boscarino, Ph.D., M.P.H., and colleagues at the New York Academy of Medicine and Florida State University. Their findings appear in the journal General Hospital Psychiatry."