Majority Of Adolescents With Severe Mental Disorders Have Never Received Treatment
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Over a 10-year period, spending for Medicaid-enrolled patients with depression increased substantially but only minimal improvements in quality of care were observed, according to a report in the December issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. The study was carried out by Catherine A. Fullerton, M.D., M.P.H., of Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance, Boston, and colleagues.
Patients with major depression who fail to see improvement after taking an antidepressant often have their initial medication switched or combined with a second drug. Many clinicians weigh the possibility of adverse side effects when deciding between strategies. New research in the latest issue of General Hospital Psychiatry now suggests one strategy may not be any more likely to be harmful than the other.
A study by researchers at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) shows that rats given a popularly prescribed antidepressant during development exhibit brain abnormalities and behaviors characteristic of autism spectrum disorders. The findings suggest that taking a certain class of antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors – SSRIs – during pregnancy might be one factor contributing to a dramatic rise in these developmental disorders in children.
Prolonged exposure therapy, cognitive therapy, and delayed prolonged exposure therapy, appear to reduce posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms in patients who have experienced a recent traumatic event, according to a report published Online First by Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. The study was conducted by Arieh Y. Shalev, M.D., and colleagues from Hadassah University Hospital, Jerusalem, Israel.
About half of Medicaid-covered children and adolescents in Ohio who are in treatment for depression complete their first three months of prescribed antidepressants, and only one-fifth complete the recommended minimum six-month course of drugs to treat depression, new research suggests. Among those at the highest risk for not completing treatment are adolescents – as opposed to younger children – and minority youths, particularly African Americans, according to the analysis of Medicaid prescription data over a three-year period.
Older people taking new generation antidepressants are at more risk of dying or suffering from a range of serious health conditions including stroke, falls, fractures and epilepsy, a study involving researchers at The University of Nottingham has found. The research, published on bmj.com, discovered that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are more strongly associated with an increased risk of several adverse outcomes in people over the age of 65 with depression compared with older tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs).
An extract of the herb St. John’s Wort and a standard antidepressant medication both failed to outdo a placebo in relieving symptoms of minor depression in a clinical trial comparing the three. The results of this study, consistent with earlier research, do not in support the use of medications for mild depression.
Patients who use anti-depressants are much more likely to suffer relapses of major depression than those who use no medication at all, concludes a McMaster researcher. In a paper that is likely to ignite new controversy in the hotly debated field of depression and medication, evolutionary psychologist Paul Andrews concludes that patients who have used anti-depressant medications can be nearly twice as susceptible to future episodes of major depression.
Prenatal exposure to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, especially during the first trimester, is associated with a modest increase the risk of developing an autism spectrum disorder, according to a report published Online First in the Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. The research was conducted by Lisa A. Croen, Ph.D., of Kaiser Permanente Northern California, Oakland, and colleagues.
A side effect of many commonly used drugs appears to increase the risks of both cognitive impairment and death in older people, according to new research led by the University of East Anglia (UEA). As part of the Medical Research Council’s Cognitive Function and Ageing Studies (CFAS) project, the study is the first systematic investigation into the long term health impacts of ‘anticholinergic activity’ – a known potential side effect of many prescription and over the counter drugs which affects the brain by blocking a key neurotransmitter called acetylcholine. Included in the report is a downloadable list of drugs with an estimated anticholinergic effect.
