Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Screening Teens for Suicidal Ideas Not a Risk - Study Reuters story at Yahoo - "Asking teenagers if they think about suicide does not increase the risk they will act on it and may actually help adolescents who suffer from depression, researchers said on Tuesday. More than 2,300 students at six suburban New York high schools filled out questionnaires with half answering questions about whether they thought about suicide while the other half did not. Neither group exhibited increased distress or suicidal thoughts after participating, including at-risk individuals with a history of suicide attempts, depression, or drug abuse. "  
  

Tough Lessons from TennCare A report, in Adobe Acrobat format, from the Council for Affordable Health Insurance - " ennCare — a managed care program that replaced and expanded Medicaid in Tennessee — has been troubled from its inception. Hastily implemented so as to minimize evaluation and opposition, Tennesseans have been paying the high price for an ill-conceived program ever since. ... Now, 11 years after implementation, Tennessee is a poorer, but wiser, state..."  
  

Eastern vs Western Perspectives on Depression: An Expert Interview With James C.-Y. Chou, MD Interview in Medscape Psychiatry & Mental Health - "...the concept of psychological depression in Eastern cultures is not as well accepted as it is in Western cultures. In fact, the whole idea of illness in Eastern cultures is based on physical illness. In the last 15 or 20 years, there has been an improvement as Asian people are thinking more about psychological illness, but by and large, either you have physical illness or you're not sick. So the idea of psychological illness is not culturally well-accepted. This leads to the frequent presentation of depression as somatic complaints, because it's much easier for patients to have a physical complaint than to have a psychological complaint; if they have a psychological illness, then they are perceived as being a persistently mentally ill patient as you would see in a state hospital. So the 2 things I think about are somatization and stigma..." [Viewing Medscape resources requires registration, which is free].  
  

New Report on Washington Mental Health Crisis PR Newswire story at Yahoo - "The Washington chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) and partners from medical, law enforcement, education and other communities have released a new report on the state's budget crisis and mental healthcare needs, while launching a statewide campaign to address the costs of untreated mental illness..." See also the full report, Can Crisis Beget Opportunity? Washington State's Response to the Mental Health Funding Quandary (Adobe Acrobat), and other, related resources at the NAMI web site.  
  

Obituary: Mental Health Advocate Jay B. Cutler Washington Post obituary - "Jay B. Cutler, 74, whose advocacy over 30 years helped secure better treatment for people suffering from mental illness and substance abuse, died of lung cancer March 4 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Mr. Cutler is credited with reducing the stigma appended to mental illness and helping people receive better care. Early in his career as a Senate aide, he helped change the perception of national policymakers towards alcoholism and the effects of alcohol abuse. Working with then-Sens. Jacob Javits and Harold Hughes, he played a pivotal role in the drafting and passage of the landmark Comprehensive Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Prevention, Treatment and Rehabilitation Act of 1970, which established the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism." [Viewing Washington Post stories requires registration, which is free.]