Friday, January 21, 2005

Short-Term Psychodynamic Therapy Found Effective in Several Disorders  Psychiatric News story - " Effect sizes were significant for a wide range of psychiatric conditions including depression, substance abuse, eating disorders, and personality disorders, among others. A meta-analysis of more than 30 years of randomized controlled trials of short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy (STPP) found it effective for treatment of psychiatric disorders. Short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy produced statistically significant pretreatment-posttreatment effect sizes for target problems, general psychiatric symptoms, and social functioning. The effect sizes were stable and tended to increase at follow-up, according to a report of the study in the December 2004 Archives of General Psychiatry."  
  

Bipolar Patients Say Depression More Disabling Than Mania  Psychiatric News story - " When treating bipolar patients, clinicians may focus more on manic than depressive symptoms, but a new study suggests that it is time for that focus to shift. In bipolar patients both manic and depressive episodes take their toll, of course, but a large new population-based study finds that the depressive phases are far more disabling on several key dimensions than are the manic phases. Among bipolar illness patients, depressive symptoms caused more serious disruptions in occupational, family, and social functioning—findings, researchers emphasized, that point to a need for strategies that will lead to enhanced recognition and treatment of bipolar disorder."  
  

Reducing the Burden of Bipolar Disorder for Patient and Caregiver Bipolar Disorder Expert Column in Medscape Psychiatry & Mental Health - " According to the DSM-IV, bipolar disorder is a severe, recurrent, life-long illness that affects up to about 7% of Americans. Lifetime prevalence rates for bipolar I and II disorder range from .9% to 2.1%; for cyclothymia, a milder form of bipolar disorder, prevalence ranges from 3% to 5%. More recent prevalence estimates are even higher. The World Health Organization reports that bipolar disorder was the sixth leading cause of years lived with disability, worldwide, in 1990 and remains among the top 10 causes today." [Viewing Medscape resources requires registration, which is free].  
  

Intellect linked to suicide risk  BBC story - "Intelligent young men are less likely to take their own lives than others, researchers suggest. Young men who scored low on intelligence tests were two to three times more likely to commit suicide, the Swedish-UK team found. They followed nearly a million 18-year-old men, consigned to serve in the military, for up to 26 years. The researchers told the British Medical Journal that problems in childhood might be an underlying cause. "