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Risks of developing mental health problems if brother or sister affected

This is the first study to assess risk of developing any psychiatric diagnosis in siblings of all patients hospitalized for any type of mental disorder in an entire population, and is presented at the ECNP neuroscience congress in Vienna. The lifetime chance of suffering a mental disorder is extremely high. It is estimated that each year 38.2% of the EU population suffers from a mental disorder, corresponding to 164.8 million persons affected. It is known that siblings of patients with major mental disorders have an increased risk of suffering from the same disorder, but until now the risks have not been quantified Now an international team has examined the rates of mental disorders in the families of 6111 Israeli patients who had been hospitalised with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or depression. They compared them to over 74,000 controls, age-and gender matched controls, taken from the Israeli Population Registry, which records all births, deaths, marriages and divorces in t...
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Better, cost-effective depression treatment for teens identified

Depression can create a huge cost burden on patients and institutions, and for teenagers that includes issues like missed school and the costs of healthcare for families. A new study in  JAMA Pediatrics , led by Seattle Children's Research Institute and Group Health Cooperative, identifies a cost-effective treatment that yields promising results for depressed teens. "We used a collaborative care approach to treat teen depression, which included having a depression care manager who worked with the patient, family and doctors to develop a plan and support the teen in implementing that plan," said Dr. Laura Richardson, an adolescent medicine physician and researcher at Seattle Children's. "We were pleased to find that this collaborative approach was significantly more effective in treating depression than standard care with only a small increase in costs." Collaborative care led to better results Richardson and her co-investigators worked with nine Grou...
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High status job means you are less likely to respond to treatment for depression

Up to a third of patients who receive drug treat for depression do not respond to treatment. Knowing which groups don't respond could help clinicians understand which treatments are appropriate to which person. In the case of workers, it may also enable employers to take steps to ease stressful conditions. Although there is a wealth of research showing that low social and economic status is associated with a greater risk of depression, there has been little work focusing on how occupational levels respond to treatment. A group of international researchers from Belgium, Italy, Israel and Austria enlisted 654 working adults attending clinics for depression, and classified their work according to occupational level. 336 (51.4%) held high occupational level jobs, 161 (24.6%) middle-level, and 157 (24%) low level. Around two-thirds of the patients were female (65.6%), which reflects the normal gender difference in reported depression. Most patients were treated with SRIs (Serotonin ...
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Why don't antidepressants work in some patients?

According to researcher, Silvia Poggini (Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome), "There is no doubt that antidepressants work for many people, but for between 30 and 50% of depressed people, antidepressants don't work. No-one knows why. This work may explain part of the reason." The researchers have proposed that simply increasing the levels of serotonin, by taking an SSRI, does not cause a recovery from depression, but puts the brain into a condition where change can take place -- it increases the plasticity of the brain, making it more open to being changed. "In a certain way it seems that the SSRIs open the brain to being moved from a fixed state of unhappiness, to a condition where other circumstances can determine whether or not you recover" said Ms Poggini. According to the researchers, it is the environmental conditions you find yourselves in at the time of the treatment which determines whether you are likely to get better or worse. To test this, the...
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New treatment for depressed smokers trying to quit

The paper, an extensive review of current research, offers a much deeper understanding of why nicotine withdrawal symptoms for people with depression make it much more difficult to quit smoking. The paper was published in the international journal Addiction . "We've used this new theory of withdrawal in depressed smokers to develop the first targeted approach for smoking cessation in this underserved population," said senior author Brian Hitsman, associate professor of preventive medicine and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Depressed smokers experience adverse withdrawal states that contribute to resumption of smoking, including low mood, difficulty engaging in rewarding activities and impaired thinking/memory, the paper reports. These symptoms are more severe for people with depression than for those without depression. In addition, depressed smokers tend to have fewer ways to cope with the symptoms and ...
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Fear of stigma or sanction keeps many doctors from revealing mental health issues, study finds

Part of the reason lies in concern that due to stigma, others may doubt their ability to keep up with a demanding profession. But there's another factor: Many states require physicians to report any mental diagnosis -- no matter how mild or treatable, or how far in the past -- to their state medical licensing board. This leads physicians to fear that seeking help for depression or anxiety could lead to restrictions on their medical license. In a survey answered by more than 2,100 female physicians who are also mothers, nearly half believed they had met the definition for a mental illness at least some time during their career, but had not sought treatment. Two-thirds reported that fear of stigma drove them to keep their worries quiet. One in three of the women who answered the survey said they'd been given a formal mental health diagnosis since medical school. Many thought they could manage their situation on their own, including writing their own prescriptions or payin...
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Group psychoeducation offers 'early intervention' for bipolar patients

The study by academics at The Universities of Nottingham, Lancaster (Spectrum Centre) and Manchester published this week in  Lancet Psychiatry , and funded by the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR), found evidence that psychoeducation -- in which patients are offered information on their illness and work with family members to develop personalised coping strategies -- could potentially offer an effective early intervention for people with bipolar disorder. They have called for further research to explore whether group psychoeducation could be used preventatively to halt the further progression of the disorder. The research was led by Professor Richard Morriss in the University's School of Medicine and Institute of Mental Health -- a partnership between the University and Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust and NIHR Collaborative for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care East Midlands. Professor Morriss said: "NICE recommended group psychoeducation ...
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