Month: October 2026

Reading of the Week: Suicide in Canada; Also, School Cellphone Restrictions and Uebel on Irritability

October 22, 2026 / / 0 Comments

From the Editor

This week, we turn closer to home. All the selections are from The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. The Canadian connection includes the journal, of course, as well as the data and topics. That said, these topics – suicide, school cellphone restrictions, and irritability – are relevant for those in my home country and elsewhere.

In the first selection, Sara Zulyniak (of the University of Calgary) and her co-authors look at suicide trends in Canada from 2000 to 2024, drawing on Statistics Canada data. “Overall trends and many Canadian age and sex groups have seen declining rates of suicide mortality beginning in 2018, though some young female groups have continued to have increasing rates of suicide from 2000 to 2024.” We consider the paper and its implications.

In the second selection, Kimberley C. Tsujimoto (of the Hospital for Sick Children) and her co-authors analyzed data on the early implementation of school cellphone restrictions in Ontario and the association with screen use and mental health outcomes for children and youth. “We found that greater adherence to school cellphone restrictions was associated with lower social media use, and subsequently fewer depressive and anxiety symptoms.”

In the third selection, Michael Uebel (of The University of Texas at Austin) writes about irritability in depression and anxiety. “Irritability carries information that standard depression scales miss, and that tracking it offers an early, actionable read on whether to continue or modify a treatment.”

DG

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Reading of the Week: AI Psychosis – from JAMA Psychiatry; Also, Benzodiazepines in the US, and Dr. Belay on Social Media & Symptoms

October 15, 2026 / / 0 Comments

From the Editor

ChatGPT is the most downloaded app in history. People turn to AI for travel tips and restaurant advice. But what about its impact on those vulnerable to psychosis? Or those experiencing psychosis?

In a new research letter published in JAMA Psychiatry, Zachary Bergson (of Vanderbilt University) and his co-authors attempt to answer those questions by analyzing more than 200 000 mental health notes at an academic centre. “In this systematic analysis of AI psychosis, documented in the EHR of a large US medical setting, psychosis-worsening interactions with conversational AI were most common among patients experiencing their first episode of psychosis.” We consider the study and its implications.

In the second selection, from The American Journal of Psychiatry, Naomi Cruz (of Rutgers University) and her co-authors look at benzodiazepine dispensing in the United States, using data on 1.1 billion prescriptions. “From 2013 to 2024, the national prevalence of dispensed benzodiazepine prescriptions declined by more than one-quarter, with reductions across all patient age groups and most prescriber types as well as in the mean dose dispensed per benzodiazepine prescription.”

And in the third selection, from The Washington Post, Dr. Nebyou Belay, a psychiatrist, writes about the influence of the Internet on psychiatric diagnoses. He argues that social media can encourage people – particularly young people – to adopt psychiatric diagnoses before their symptoms have been properly assessed, blurring the line between normal distress and mental illness. “Psychiatry should help people understand what they are experiencing. Increasingly, however, the Internet gets there first.”

DG

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Reading of the Week: Cannabis – With Papers from Lancet Psych and JAMA Psych; Also, Dr. Kaliamurthy on How the Weed Got Too Strong

October 8, 2026 /

From the Editor

Cannabis was the only thing that helped him sleep, my patient explained. He also described positive information he had found online. He then asked: Will it affect my psychosis?

In a new review published in The Lancet Psychiatry, Wayne Hall (of The University of Queensland) and his co-authors look at cannabis use and major mental disorders. The topic isn’t new, of course, but their approach is impressive: they draw on many types of studies (epidemiological, genetic, experimental, and preclinical) to try to establish the connection – or the lack of connection – between daily cannabis use and psychosis, bipolar disorder, anxiety, and depression. “There is credible evidence that regular cannabis use plays a contributory causal role in psychosis.” We discuss the paper and its implications.

How have cannabis and alcohol misuse changed over time? In the second selection, from JAMA Psychiatry, Beth Han (of National Institutes of Health) and her co-authors use a US dataset with almost 190 000 participants, and show a sharp rise in cannabis use disorder. “More effective cannabis use disorder treatments are needed.”

Finally, in the third selection, Dr. Sivabalaji Kaliamurthy (of Howard University) writes about cannabis in an essay for The New York Times. He notes a big increase in the potency of cannabis and describes his worries as a physician, particularly about adolescent users. “The question now is whether we are willing to regulate and enforce product safety, especially to protect the most vulnerable among us.”

DG

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Reading of the Week: New Tech for Old Problems? An App for Negative Symptoms, Chatbots & Suicidality, Notes in the Age of AI Scribes

October 1, 2026 /

From the Editor

The voices became quieter, and the paranoia lessened. But my patient continued to complain about his lack of motivation. He left the hospital, but he never rejoined the workforce. Negative symptoms are difficult to treat.

Could an app help? In a new JAMA Network Open paper, Abhishek Pratap (of Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals) and his co-authors attempt to answer that question. They describe a randomized clinical trial of 457 individuals with negative symptoms of schizophrenia, comparing those receiving an app (CT-155) intervention featuring evidence-based psychosocial treatments against an active control. “These findings support CT-155 as a potential adjunctive therapy for patients for an indication of negative symptoms of schizophrenia with a high unmet need for FDA-approved pharmacologic treatments specifically targeting negative symptoms.” We discuss the paper and its implications.

As more and more people turn to chatbots for mental health advice, we should ask: how can we make them safer? In a new Comment from npj Digital Medicine, Joanna M. Streck (of Harvard University) and her co-authors describe experimentation with an AI chatbot and the lessons learned. “We describe suicide safety monitoring features for a chatbot implemented in a high-risk clinical setting and make recommendations for chatbot design alongside human-monitoring and triage.”

Finally, in the third selection, Dr. Danilo Rojas-Velasquez (of Harvard University) writes about clinical notes and language in a paper for Academic Psychiatry. He offers suggestions for learners, noting how language affects care – a topic now even more relevant with the growing use of AI scribes. “We watch language do its quiet work, and we write notes that will, in turn, shape how the next team thinks.”

DG

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