"Comparative mental health policy: Are there lessons to be learned?"
By Steve Lurie of the Canadian Mental Health Association, Toronto Branch, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This article was published in the International Review of Psychiatry, published by Routledge, part of the Taylor and Francis Group, in their volume 17, number 2 / April 2005 and through whose courtesy IIMHL members will be able to review the article free of charge for the month of July.
The article can be accessed by clicking either here or here. IIMHL wishes to thank the Taylor and Francis Group and gratefully acknowledge their making this review available. IIMHL members wishing to further review the Taylor and Francis website and / or review other articles should click here.
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Accurate Diagnosis and Methodical Treatment Approach Important In the Management of OCD in Children and Adolescents Drug and Therapy Perspectives article at
Medscape - "Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) causing clinical impairment can occur in up to 3% of children and adolescents, while a larger proportion have subthreshold symptoms that are, nevertheless, noticeable. The most common obsessions are fears of contamination and aggressive/sexual behaviour while the most common compulsions are repeating, ordering compulsions and washing rituals. In terms of pharmacological treatment, selective serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine; 5-HT) reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are currently the drugs with the greatest benefit-to-risk ratio in the treatment of childhood OCD and are the agents of first choice ..."
Insurers Turn to Escalating Copays As Cost-Containment Strategy Psychiatric News story - "Copayment increases associated with a three-tier formulary are found to lower total spending on ADHD medications and decrease the probability of their use. Three-tier pharmacy formularies, adopted by many employers and health plans to control costs, appear to be associated with a significant decrease in the probability of using medications to treat children for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Copayment increases associated with the implementation of a three-tier formulary resulted in lower total ADHD medication spending by the employer, sizable increases in out-of-pocket expenditures for families of children with ADHD, and a significant decrease in the probability of using those medications, according to a study in the April
Archives of General Psychiatry."
Problem Behaviors In Teens May Signal Later Illness Psychiatric News story based on a study in the
American Journal of Psychiatry - "Adolescents who engage in problem behaviors before age 15 are at high risk of developing mental disorders by adulthood. These disorders range from substance abuse to major depression to antisocial personality. It should come as no surprise that people who smoked as adolescents often become nicotine dependent as adults, or that people who were in trouble with the police as adolescents show signs of antisocial personality disorder as adults. It may be more surprising, however, that people who engaged in specific problem behaviors as adolescents are at risk, as adults, not just for related mental disorders, but for a more generalized psychopathology."
Mental Health Reform Critical to Fixing Medicaid Announcement at the New Democrats Online web site - "At the urging of President Bush, this year Congress will attempt to cut $10 billion from Medicaid. This reduction would have a devastating impact on people with mental illness, the country's leading cause of disability. In "Parity-Plus: A Third Way Approach to Fix America's Mental Health System", the new PPI report released today, Art Levine offers a bold reform plan that would make mental health coverage stronger and more cost-effective, while diminishing the financial burden on the country's strained Medicaid system." See also the full report,
Parity-Plus: A Third Way Approach to Fix America's Mental Health System.
Copyright 2003 © Bill Davis.
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