Tag: Portugal

Reading of the Week: Gone to the Dogs? The New BJP Study on Dog-assisted Interventions; Also, BC Decriminalization & the Latest in the News

April 24, 2025 /

From the Editor

He presented for the appointment with his dog. He told me that getting the chocolate lab – who had been trained by a national, not-for-profit organization – was the best single thing to help him. For the record, the dog was beautiful.

More and more of our patients are turning to animal interventions. But is there evidence to support this trend? In a new The British Journal of Psychiatry paper, Emily Shoesmith (of the University of York) and her co-authors look at dog-assisted interventions (DAIs), describing a review involving 33 papers. “DAIs may show promise for improving mental health and behavioural outcomes for those with mental health or neurodevelopmental conditions, particularly for conditions requiring social skill support. However, the quality of reporting requires improvement.” We discuss the paper and its clinical implications.

In the second selection, John F. Kelly (of Harvard University) reviews the successes of drug decriminalization in Portugal and its failures in British Columbia. In a new Editorial for JAMA Psychiatry, he notes key differences in their approaches. He also mulls the importance of such public-policy experimentation. “As demonstrated in Portugal, persistent, patient, thoughtful analysis, and sensitive, systemic planning is needed to ensure lives are saved and other outcomes improved.”

Finally, we explore the latest news with articles from The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, and NBC News. The topics: one firefighter’s battle with OCD, overdose deaths in North America, and a new mental-health awareness campaign.

DG

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Reading of the Week: An Exercise App for Burnout – the New JAMA Psych Paper; Also, Pandemic Mental Health Use and Szalavitz on Portugal

September 7, 2023 /

From the Editor

A recent CMA survey found that more than half of physicians report high levels of burnout; surveys of other health care disciplines show a similar result. Not surprisingly, burnout is much discussed. What can be done for health care workers?

In the first selection, Vincent Gosselin Boucher (of the University of British Columbia) and his co-authors consider that question, offering an app-based intervention featuring exercises that can be done at home. The resulting study, just published in JAMA Psychiatry, included 288 health care workers in an RCT. “[A] 12-week app-based exercise intervention yielded significant reductions in depressive symptoms among HCWs that became more pronounced as time progressed.” We review the paper and its implications.

In the second selection, Jonathan H. Cantor (of the RAND Corporation) and his co-authors look at mental health utilization and spending before and during the pandemic, drawing on almost 1.6 million mental health insurance claims in the US. “[U]tilization and spending rates for mental health care services among commercially insured adults increased by 38.8% and 53.7%, respectively, between 2019 and 2022.” 

Finally, in the third selection, author Maia Szalavitz writes about the decriminalization of low-level drug crimes in Portugal. In a New York Times essay, she argues that critics don’t understand what Portugal accomplished – and, in contrast, how many Americans go untreated in correctional facilities. She concludes: “Shifting priorities and funding to provide high-quality treatment and other supports for recovery like housing takes time. Our failure is a century of criminalization – not much-needed attempts to end it.”

DG

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