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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