From the Editor
Last year, Daisy Singla (of the University of Toronto) and her co-authors published an important paper on perinatal care. The SUMMIT trial borrowed a page from experiments in low-income countries where – with few providers – non-specialists have been trained up for some psychotherapies. There may be a great distance between rural India and the urban North American centres participating in SUMMIT, but Singla et al. showed impressive results at three months for those with perinatal depression.
But do the benefits continue after those first months? In this week’s first selection, a new paper from The Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology, & Women’s Health, Singla et al. attempt to answer that question with a secondary analysis.“Behavioural activation for perinatal depression produced sustained improvements over the 12 months since randomisation when delivered by non-specialist providers… with similar clinical outcomes and favourable economic value relative to specialist delivery.” We consider the paper and its implications.
In the second selection, Dr. William Smith (of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and his co-authors look at AI and regulations in a new Viewpoint published in JAMA Psychiatry. As AI’s role in mental health grows, they review current US state and federal government regulations. “Emerging federal and state regulatory approaches remain vague and are sometimes conflicting.”
Finally, in the third selection, Dr. Daniel Saddawi-Konefka (of Harvard University) writes about depression and stigma. The JAMA paper is personal – he describes his own experiences. He also notes that disclosing mental illness is often considered brave. “My wish is duller still, a world where getting help for your mind is as ordinary as filling your car’s gas tank.”
DG
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