Tag: Kerman

Reading of the Week: Student Mental Health – the New CJP Paper; Also, Novel Treatment for Alcohol and Kerman & Stergiopoulos on Encampments

December 19, 2024 /

From the Editor

He walked into our emergency department late one night. He told me that he felt overwhelmed – not just by his university studies, but by everything. Even getting out of bed was challenging. Like many, his depression began in late adolescence, just as he was starting his engineering program.

What are the experiences of university students with mental health problems? And what can be done to improve them? Nathan King (of Queen’s University) and his co-authors try to answer these questions in a new paper published in The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. They surveyed more than 4 000 Queen’s students over a five-year period, and did both qualitative and quantitative analyses. They found 30% reported a lifetime mental disorder and 23% had a history of self-harm, yet only 15% accessed care. They make several recommendations including: “Student-tailored mental health literacy may be a sustainable approach to address the attitudinal and practical barriers identified.” We consider the paper and its implications.

In the second selection, Dr. Markku Lähteenvuo (of the University of Eastern Finland) and his colleagues discuss semaglutide and sister drugs for alcohol use disorder in a JAMA Psychiatry brief report. Drawing on Swedish databases, they compared individuals who took the glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP-1) agonists to those who didn’t. “Among patients with AUD and comorbid obesity/type 2 diabetes, the use of semaglutide and liraglutide were associated with a substantially decreased risk of hospitalization due to AUD.”

In the third selection, an op ed published in the Toronto Star, Nick Kerman and Dr. Vicky Stergiopoulos (both of the University of Toronto) consider the Ontario government’s plan to end homeless encampments in Canada’s largest province. They suggest an alternative. “Let’s leverage a housing-first intervention, a proven way to get people the housing and support they need.”

The Reading of the Week is going on holidays for the next weeks (or, at least, I am). The next Reading will be 16 January 2025. All the best in the holiday season.

DG

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Reading of the Week: Adolescent Experience with Illness – the World Psych Paper; Also, the CANMAT Depression Update and a Letter to the Editor

May 16, 2024 /

From the Editor

I’m separated from everyone else.

These are the words of a young patient with depression. We often use diagnoses and lists of symptoms to understand patients. But how do patients themselves understand their illness? In the first selection, Dr. Paolo Fusar-Poli (of King’s College London) and his co-authors attempt to answer that question with a “bottom-up” approach. In a new World Psychiatry paper, they describe the experiences of adolescents with mental disorders. “The study was co-designed, co-conducted and co-written by junior experts by experience – representing different genders, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and continents – and academics, refining an earlier method developed by our group to investigate the lived experience of psychosis and depression.” We examine the paper and its implications.

Childhood depression by Marc-Anthony Macon

Much has changed over the past eight years – who was talking about pandemics in 2016? Last week, the Canadian Network for Mood and Anxiety Treatments (CANMAT) released its first major depression update in eight years. So how has depression management changed? In the second selection, Dr. Raymond Lam (of the University of British Columbia), the co-first author, discusses the update in a Quick Takes podcast interview. “They really are the most widely used guidelines in the world.” 

And in the third selection, in a letter to the editor, Nick Kerman (of the University of Toronto) writes about the recent homelessness paper from JAMA Psychiatry, summarized in a Reading earlier this month. He notes the striking finding: 26% meet the criteria for antisocial personality disorder. “Could it really be 1 in 4 or is there something else that could explain the finding?”

DG

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Reading of the Week: The Homeless – Who Are They? How Can We Help Them? Also, Shannon Jones on Her Son & His Homelessness

May 2, 2024 /

From the Editor

For much of her admission, she was disorganized and, at times, agitated. But when the medications started to work, Tanya talked about her years of homelessness and the stresses of finding a warm place to stay on a cold night, which often involved sleeping on buses – and “that’s not easy, I’m almost elderly.” 

This week, we take a closer look at homelessness and mental illness.

In the first selection, Richard Barry (of the University of Calgary) and his co-authors describe a systematic review and meta-analysis of mental disorders and homelessness for JAMA Psychiatry. They included 85 studies involving more than 48 000 people globally. “The findings demonstrate that most people experiencing homelessness have mental health disorders.” We explore the paper and its implications.

Street art in Quebec City

In the second selection, Nick Kerman and Dr. Vicky Stergiopoulos (both of the University of Toronto) examine different aspects of homelessness. In a comprehensive review for Nature Mental Health, they analyze the origins of the problem in high-income nations: focusing on deinstitutionalization. They also point to a way forward, noting the successes of Housing First and other interventions. “Homelessness among people with mental illness is a prevalent and persisting problem.”

And in the third selection, Shannon Jones writes about her son, who was homeless, in a deeply personal essay for The Washington Post. She discusses his childhood and the trips they took as a family. Also, she describes his illness and his death. “There are an estimated 600,000 homeless people in America, 75,000 of them in Los Angeles County. The number who die each year is increasing, with drug overdoses the leading cause. And every one of them has a story.”

DG

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