Monday, May 16, 2005

Mother's Serious Mental Illness and Substance Use among Youths New report from SAMHSA - "Although substance use and serious mental illness (SMI) tend to occur together among adults and parental substance use is associated with an increased risk of substance use in the offspring,research findings are not conclusive about whether substance use among youths is associated with parental mental illness.This report focuses on the association between mother's SMI and substance use among youths aged 12 to 17." Principal findings include: "In 2002 and 2003, an annual average of 2 million (12 percent) mothers living with youths aged 12 to 17 had serious mental illness (SMI) during the past year; among youths aged 12 to 17, 3 million (12.1 percent) youths lived with a mother who had SMI; youths living with a mother who had SMI had an increased risk of past month alcohol or illicit drug use compared with youths living with a mother who did not have SMI." See also the page at the SAMHSA site linking to related resources.   
  

Recognition and Treatment of Bipolar Disorder in Children and Adolescents  A new CME unit from Medscape - "Pediatric bipolar topics covered during this talk include diagnosis, differential diagnosis, comorbidity, a short case presentation, and treatment options, including behavioral, mood stabilizers, and atypical antipsychotics." See also Children and Bipolar Disorder: Recognizing Early Onset, another CME unit at the same source. [Viewing Medscape resources requires registration, which is free].  
  

A Hospital Stay Can Make An Older Person More Likely To Commit Suicide Science Daily story - "A study in the May edition of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society indicates that suicide in persons age 80 and older is more prevalent among those who have been hospitalized than in those who have not. A review of data on nearly 1.8 million people age 52 and older revealed that about two-thirds of the oldest subjects who committed suicide had been hospitalized for an illness in the previous two years. This is the first study to examine this type of association between hospitalization and suicide in older adults."  
  

Integrated chemical-dependency and mental-health treatment best for adolescents Story at Medical News Today (UK) - "Adolescents with alcohol- and drug-use disorders often have co-occurring mental-health disorders. 'Dual-diagnosis' patients - those with co-occurring substance-abuse and mental-health problems - tend to have less successful chemical-dependency (CD) treatment outcomes. Findings indicate that dual-diagnosis adolescents in private, managed-care CD treatment who receive psychiatric services have better CD-treatment outcomes than those not receiving these services. Adolescents with alcohol- and drug-use disorders often have co-occurring mental-health disorders. Furthermore, patients with co-occurring substance-abuse and mental-health problems tend to have less successful chemical-dependency (CD) treatment outcomes. A recent study of adolescent patients in private, managed-care CD treatment has found that those individuals who receive needed psychiatric services are more likely to be abstinent from both alcohol and drugs than those not receiving these services. Results are published in the May issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research."