Tag: hospitalizations

Reading of the Week: Are Involuntary Admissions on the Rise? The New CJP Paper; Also, Telepsychiatry (JAMA Psych) and Dr. Oh on Suicide (Acad Psych)

November 3, 2022 /

From the Editor

A recent New York Times article notes that adolescents are increasingly looking for information on mental health and turning to TikTok. Such is life at a time when stigma fades: people are curious, though not necessarily going to the best places for information.

But are we reaching people earlier in their illness experience? We hope that the answer is yes – a new paper with British Columbian data, however, suggests that police apprehensions are more common, as are involuntary admissions, indicating that more people are in crisis. In the first selection from The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, Jackson P. Loyal (of Simon Fraser University) and his co-authors draw on administrative databases and find a major shift: “While roughly half of the people hospitalized for mental health and substance use disorders were admitted voluntarily in 2008/2009, by 2017/2018 this fell to approximately one-third.” We look at the paper and its clinical implications.

British Columbia: a province of rivers, whales, and involuntary admissions

In the second selection, Dr. Carlos Blanco (of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, United States) and his co-authors consider the rise of telepsychiatry, noting that 39% of mental health care in the US is now virtual. In this new JAMA Psychiatry Viewpoint, “Expansion of telepsychiatry creates new opportunities to increase treatment access, while it poses overlapping challenges to multiple stakeholders…”

And in the third selection, Dr. Nicholas Zhenwei Oh (of the Ministry of Health Holdings, Singapore) writes personally and thoughtfully about the loss of a patient by suicide. He goes into detail on his own experience during training. “Patient suicide is possibly the great equaliser amongst psychiatrists, psychiatry trainees, and perhaps any other clinician who has experienced a patient’s suicide. My own experience came suddenly and unexpectedly, and it will likely leave a psychological scar as a grim reminder of one of the lowest points of my career.”

DG

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Reading of the Week: A Statin a Day Keeps the Doctor Away? The New Hayes et al. JAMA Psych Paper

January 31, 2019 /

From the Editor

Statins can help prevent MIs in people with high cholesterol. Can they also prevent psychiatric admissions for those with schizophrenia?

The question may seem odd, but there is evidence that statins can reduce symptoms in people with schizophrenia – though the evidence is light. That may not be as surprising as it seems: statins are anti-inflammatories, and a growing literature suggests neuro-inflammation is involved in major mental illness.

So should our patients receive medications like statins? The concept of repurposing common medications has gained attention.

This week, we look at a paper just published in JAMA Psychiatry. In their study, University College London’s Joseph F. Hayes and his co-authors consider the effect of statins, calcium channel blockers, and biguanides (such as metformin). Spoiler alert: they find that these medications reduce psychiatric hospital admissions and self-harm in people with serious mental illness.

statins-understandingthehypeStatins for schizophrenia?

In this Reading, we review the new paper about the not-so-new meds. We also take a quick look at another paper (on ketamine).

DG

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Reading of the Week: ECT and Inpatients – An Underused Tool?

July 20, 2017 /

From the Editor

It’s a powerful tool that helps people with refractory depression and other illnesses.

It’s a treatment that carries a heavy stigma, and is used less today than even a decade ago.

Both statements describe electroconvulsive therapy (or ECT) – perhaps the most controversial intervention in psychiatry. And while it has been studied for decades, little work has been done considering the impact of ECT on inpatient readmissions. In this week’s Reading, we look at a new JAMA Psychiatry paper that studies ECT and readmissions.

Spoiler alert: the study authors found it decreased readmits.

Electroconvulsive therapy at Winwick Hospital in 1957: relevant then as now?

The paper begs a larger question: is an important tool in the treatment of those with mental illness being underutilized as newer (and less effective) treatments are chosen?

DG Continue reading

Reading of the Week: Hospitalizations and Ethnicity (and Stigma)

August 25, 2016 /

From the Editor

Younger and sicker.

This week, we look at a new paper published in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry considering ethnicity and hospitalizations. Drawing on Ontario data, researchers looked at psychiatric hospitalizations for people of Chinese and South Asian descent, finding that they were younger and more ill at the time of admission.

Hospitalizations, ethnicity… and access

Lead author Maria Chiu of the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences told the Toronto Star:

Cultural factors play a big role in these findings. While Asian people tend to have stronger family support, they are also faced with a higher level of stigma and it prevents people from seeking help early. Families may try to cope and keep the illness within the family until there is no choice but to go to hospital.

This paper is well designed. It’s also important, speaking to larger issues about access, stigma, and ethnicity.

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