Depression | drwilda

Tag Archives: Depression

University of Glasgow study: Pressure to be on social media causes teen anxiety and depression

Alexandra Rice reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education article, Bleary-Eyed Students Can’t Stop Texting, Even to Sleep, a Researcher Finds:

Students, the researchers found, were losing an average of 45 minutes of sleep each week because of their cellphones.

The phones were disrupting sleep and, in turn, were associated with higher rates of anxiety and depression because of insufficient rest. While depression is a well-documented side effect of a lack of sleep, Ms. Adams said, the anxiety element was something new.

Students already average a “sleep debt” of two hours each night, according to Ms. Adams’s study, which reflects similar findings from national sleep studies. Her study and others suggest that college students need nine and one-quarter hours of sleep each night, though they get an average of only seven hours. So losing those extra 45 minutes hurts even more. The students who had the highest rates of technology use also had higher levels of anxiety and depression compared with the rest of the students in the Rhode Island study….http://chronicle.com/article/Bleary-Eyed-Students-Cant/129838/

Jason Dick wrote Internet Addiction and Children Hidden-Dangers and 15 Warning Signs http://ezinearticles.com/?Internet-Addiction-and-Children-Hidden-Dangers-and-15-Warning-Signs&id=546552 See also Disabled World’s Internet Addiction in Children http://www.disabled-world.com/health/pediatric/internet-addiction.php and CNN’s Internet Addiction Linked to ADHD, Depression in Teens http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/10/05/depression.adhd.internet.addiction/index.html Help Guide. Org has a good article, Internet Addiction http://www.helpguide.org/articles/addiction/internet-and-computer-addiction.htm on treating internet addiction in teens.

Science Daily reported in Pressure to be available 24/7 on social media causes teen anxiety, depression:

The need to be constantly available and respond 24/7 on social media accounts can cause depression, anxiety and reduce sleep quality for teenagers says a study being presented September 11, 2015, at a British Psychological Society conference in Manchester.

The researchers, Dr Heather Cleland Woods and Holly Scott of the University of Glasgow, provided questionnaires for 467 teenagers regarding their overall and night-time specific social media use. A further set of tests measured sleep quality, self-esteem, anxiety, depression and emotional investment in social media which relates to the pressure felt to be available 24/7 and the anxiety around, for example, not responding immediately to texts or posts

Dr Cleland Woods explained: “Adolescence can be a period of increased vulnerability for the onset of depression and anxiety, and poor sleep quality may contribute to this. It is important that we understand how social media use relates to these. Evidence is increasingly supporting a link between social media use and wellbeing, particularly during adolescence, but the causes of this are unclear.”

Analysis showed that overall and night-time specific social media use along with emotional investment were related to poorer sleep quality, lower self-esteem as well as higher anxiety and depression levels…. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150911094917.htm

Citation:

Pressure to be available 24/7 on social media causes teen anxiety, depression
The need to be constantly available, respond 24/7 on social media accounts can cause depression, anxiety

Date: September 11, 2015
Source: British Psychological Society
Summary: Overall and night-time specific social media use along with emotional investment were related to poorer sleep quality, lower self-esteem as well as higher anxiety and depression levels, new research concludes.
British Psychological Society. “Pressure to be available 24/7 on social media causes teen anxiety, depression: The need to be constantly available, respond 24/7 on social media accounts can cause depression, anxiety.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 11 September 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150911094917.htm>.

Here is the press release from the University of Glasgow:

Pressure to be available 24/7 on social media causes teen anxiety and depression

Related links
• School of Psychology
• Dr Heather Woods – research profile
• British Psychological Society

Issued: Fri, 11 Sep 2015 00:01:00 BST

The need to be constantly available and respond 24/7 on social media accounts can cause depression, anxiety and decrease sleep quality for teenagers says a study being presented today, Friday 11 September 2015, at a British Psychological Society conference in Manchester.

The researchers, Dr Heather Cleland Woods and Holly Scott of the University of Glasgow, provided questionnaires for 467 teenagers regarding their overall and night-time specific social media use. A further set of tests measured sleep quality, self-esteem, anxiety, depression and emotional investment in social media which relates to the pressure felt to be available 24/7 and the anxiety around, for example, not responding immediately to texts or posts

Dr Cleland Woods explained: “Adolescence can be a period of increased vulnerability for the onset of depression and anxiety, and poor sleep quality may contribute to this. It is important that we understand how social media use relates to these. Evidence is increasingly supporting a link between social media use and wellbeing, particularly during adolescence, but the causes of this are unclear”.

Analysis showed that overall and night-time specific social media use along with emotional investment in social media were related to poorer sleep quality, lower self-esteem as well as higher anxiety and depression levels.
Lead researcher Dr Cleland Woods said “While overall social media use impacts on sleep quality, those who log on at night appear to be particularly affected. This may be mostly true of individuals who are highly emotionally invested. This means we have to think about how our kids use social media, in relation to time for switching off.”

The study is presented at the BPS Developmental and Social Psychology Section annual conference taking place from the 9 to 11 September at The Palace Hotel in Manchester.
________________________________________
Media enquiries: ross.barker@glasgow.ac.uk / 0141 330 8593 http://www.gla.ac.uk/news/headline_419871_en.html

There is something to be said for Cafe Society where people actually meet face-to-face for conversation or the custom of families eating at least one meal together. Time has a good article on The Magic of the Family Meal http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1200760,00.html It also looks like Internet rehab will have a steady supply of customers according to an article reprinted in the Seattle Times by Hillary Stout of the New York Times. In Toddlers Latch On to iPhones – and Won’t Let Go http://www.seattletimes.com/lifestyle/toddlers-latch-onto-iphones-8212-and-wont-let-go/ Stout reports:

But just as adults have a hard time putting down their iPhones, so the device is now the Toy of Choice — akin to a treasured stuffed animal — for many 1-, 2- and 3-year-olds. It’s a phenomenon that is attracting the attention and concern of some childhood development specialists.

Looks like social networking may not be all that social.

Where information leads to Hope. © Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©
http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©
http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©
https://drwilda.com/

Tags: a Researcher Finds, Bleary-Eyed Students Can’t Stop Texting, British Psychological Society, Chronicle of Higher Education, Depression, Even to Sleep, Internet Addiction and Children Hidden-Dangers and 15 Warning Signs, Internet Addiction in Children, Pressure to be available 24/7 on social media causes teen anxiety, Science Daily, Social Media, social media addiction, Toddlers Latch On to iPhones – and Won’t Let Go, University of Glasgow

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories Dr Wilda

European College of Neuropsychopharmacology study: How to prevent suicide?

31 Aug

People of all ages may have feelings of profound sadness, loss, and depression. There is no one on earth, despite what the ads attempt to portray, who lives a perfect life. Every life has flaws and blemishes, it is just that some cope better than others. For every person who lives to a ripe old age, during the course of that life they may encounter all types of loss from loss of a loved one through death, divorce or desertion, loss of job, financial reverses, illness, dealing with A-holes and twits, plagues, pestilence, and whatever curse can be thrown at a person. The key is that they lived THROUGH whatever challenges they faced AT THAT MOMENT IN TIME. Woody Allen said something like “90% of life is simply showing up.” Let moi add a corollary, one of the prime elements of a happy life is to realize that whatever moment you are now in, it will not last forever and that includes moments of great challenge. A person does not have to be religious to appreciate the story of Job. The end of the story is that Job is restored. He had to endure much before the final victory, though.

Science Daily reported in How can we prevent suicide? Major study shows risk factors associated with depression:

A major multi-national study of suicides has identified the behaviour patterns which precede many suicide attempts. This may lead to changes in clinical practice in the care of patients affected with depression, as it shows the clinical factors which confer major risk of suicide attempts.

The statistics for suicide are frightening. According to the WHO, more than 800,000 people commit suicide every year, with perhaps 20 times that number attempting suicide. Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in the young (in the UK for example, it is the leading cause of death in men under 35) see notes, below. Effective measures of suicide prevention are urgently needed.

The BRIDGE-II-MIX study is a major international study looking at depression and suicide. The researchers evaluated 2811 patients suffering from depression, of whom 628 had already attempted suicide. Each patient was interviewed by a psychiatrist as if it were a standard evaluation of a mentally-ill patient. The parameters studied included previous suicide attempts, family history, current and previous treatment, patients’ clinical presentation, how they scored on the standard Global Assessment of Functioning scale, and other parameters. The study looked especially at the characteristics and behaviours of those who had attempted suicide, and compared these to depressed patients who had not attempted suicide. They found that certain patterns recur before suicide attempts.

According to author Dr. Dina Popovic (Barcelona):
‘We found that “depressive mixed states” often preceded suicide attempts. A depressive mixed state is where a patient is depressed, but also has symptoms of “excitation,” or mania. We found this significantly more in patients who had previously attempted suicide, than those who had not. In fact 40% of all the depressed patients who attempted suicide had a “mixed episode” rather than just depression. All the patients who suffer from mixed depression are at much higher risk of suicide.
We also found that the standard DSM criteria identified 12% of patients at showing mixed states, whereas our methods showed 40% of at-risk patients. This means that the standard methods are missing a lot of patients at risk of suicide.”

In a second analysis of the figures, they found that if a depressed patient presents any of the following symptoms:

• risky behaviour (e.g. reckless driving, promiscuous behaviour)
• psychomotor agitation (pacing around a room, wringing one’s hands, pulling off clothing and putting it back on and other similar actions)
• impulsivity (acting on a whim, displaying behaviour characterized by little or no forethought, reflection, or consideration of the consequences),
then their risk of attempting suicide is at least 50% higher.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150830152601.htm

Citation:

How can we prevent suicide? Major study shows risk factors associated with depression
Date: August 30, 2015

Source: European College of Neuropsychopharmacology

Summary:

A major multi-national study of suicides has identified the behavior patterns which precede many suicide attempts. This may lead to changes in clinical practice in the care of patients affected with depression, as it shows the clinical factors which confer major risk of suicide attempts.

• Abstract

Send to:
J Clin Psychiatry. 2015 Mar;76(3):e351-8. doi: 10.4088/JCP.14m09092.
Mixed features in patients with a major depressive episode: the BRIDGE-II-MIX study.
Perugi G1, Angst J, Azorin JM, Bowden CL, Mosolov S, Reis J, Vieta E, Young AH; BRIDGE-II-Mix Study Group.
Author information

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:

To estimate the frequency of mixed states in patients diagnosed with major depressive episode (MDE) according to conceptually different definitions and to compare their clinical validity.

METHOD:

This multicenter, multinational cross-sectional Bipolar Disorders: Improving Diagnosis, Guidance and Education (BRIDGE)-II-MIX study enrolled 2,811 adult patients experiencing an MDE. Data were collected per protocol on sociodemographic variables, current and past psychiatric symptoms, and clinical variables that are risk factors for bipolar disorder. The frequency of mixed features was determined by applying both DSM-5 criteria and a priori described Research-Based Diagnostic Criteria (RBDC). Clinical variables associated with mixed features were assessed using logistic regression.

RESULTS:

Overall, 212 patients (7.5%) fulfilled DSM-5 criteria for MDE with mixed features (DSM-5-MXS), and 818 patients (29.1%) fulfilled diagnostic criteria for a predefined RBDC depressive mixed state (RBDC-MXS). The most frequent manic/hypomanic symptoms were irritable mood (32.6%), emotional/mood lability (29.8%), distractibility (24.4%), psychomotor agitation (16.1%), impulsivity (14.5%), aggression (14.2%), racing thoughts (11.8%), and pressure to keep talking (11.4%). Euphoria (4.6%), grandiosity (3.7%), and hypersexuality (2.6%) were less represented. In multivariate logistic regression analysis, RBDC-MXS was associated with the largest number of variables including diagnosis of bipolar disorder, family history of mania, lifetime suicide attempts, duration of the current episode > 1 month, atypical features, early onset, history of antidepressant-induced mania/hypomania, and lifetime comorbidity with anxiety, alcohol and substance use disorders, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and borderline personality disorder.

CONCLUSIONS:

Depressive mixed state, defined as the presence of 3 or more manic/hypomanic features, was present in around one-third of patients experiencing an MDE. The valid symptom, illness course and family history RBDC criteria we assessed identified 4 times more MDE patients as having mixed features and yielded statistically more robust associations with several illness characteristics of bipolar disorder than did DSM-5 criteria.
© Copyright 2015 Physicians Postgraduate Press, Inc.
Comment in
• “Mixed” depression: drawbacks of DSM-5 (and other) polythetic diagnostic criteria. [J Clin Psychiatry. 2015]
• Mixed depression: a farewell to differential diagnosis? [J Clin Psychiatry. 2015]
PMID:
25830457
[PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25830457

Here is the press release from the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology:

Public Release: 29-Aug-2015 How can we prevent suicide? Major study shows risk factors associated with depression

European College of Neuropsychopharmacology

A major multi-national study of suicides has identified the behaviour patterns which precede many suicide attempts. This may lead to changes in clinical practice in the care of patients affected with depression, as it shows the clinical factors which confer major risk of suicide attempts.

The statistics for suicide are frightening. According to the WHO, more than 800,000 people commit suicide every year, with perhaps 20 times that number attempting suicide. Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in the young (in the UK for example, it is the leading cause of death in men under 35) see notes, below. Effective measures of suicide prevention are urgently needed.

The BRIDGE-II-MIX study is a major international study looking at depression and suicide. The researchers evaluated 2811 patients suffering from depression, of whom 628 had already attempted suicide. Each patient was interviewed by a psychiatrist as if it were a standard evaluation of a mentally-ill patient. The parameters studied included previous suicide attempts, family history, current and previous treatment, patients’ clinical presentation, how they scored on the standard Global Assessment of Functioning scale, and other parameters. The study looked especially at the characteristics and behaviours of those who had attempted suicide, and compared these to depressed patients who had not attempted suicide. They found that certain patterns recur before suicide attempts.

According to author Dr. Dina Popovic (Barcelona):
‘We found that “depressive mixed states” often preceded suicide attempts. A depressive mixed state is where a patient is depressed, but also has symptoms of “excitation”, or mania. We found this significantly more in patients who had previously attempted suicide, than those who had not. In fact 40% of all the depressed patients who attempted suicide had a “mixed episode” rather than just depression. All the patients who suffer from mixed depression are at much higher risk of suicide.

We also found that the standard DSM criteria identified 12% of patients at showing mixed states, whereas our methods showed 40% of at-risk patients. This means that the standard methods are missing a lot of patients at risk of suicide”.

In a second analysis of the figures, they found that if a depressed patient presents any of the following symptoms:

• risky behaviour (e.g. reckless driving, promiscuous behaviour)
• psychomotor agitation (pacing around a room, wringing one’s hands, pulling off clothing and putting it back on and other similar actions)
• impulsivity (acting on a whim, displaying behaviour characterized by little or no forethought, reflection, or consideration of the consequences),
then their risk of attempting suicide is at least 50% higher.
Dr Popovic continued:

“In our opinion, assessing these symptoms in every depressed patient we see is extremely important, and has immense therapeutical implications. Most of these symptoms will not be spontaneously referred by the patient, the clinician needs to inquire directly, and many clinicians may not be aware of the importance of looking at these symptoms before deciding to treat depressed patients.

This is an important message for all clinicians, from the GPs who see depressed patients and may not pay enough attention to these symptoms, which are not always reported spontaneously by the patients, through to secondary and tertiary level clinicians. In highly specialized tertiary centres, clinicians working with bipolar patients are usually more aware of this, but that practice needs to extent to all levels.

The strength of this study is that it’s not a clinical trial, with ideal patients – it’s a big study, from the real world”.
Commenting ECNP President, Professor Guy Goodwin (Oxford) said:

The recognition of increased activation in the context of a severe depression is an important practical challenge. While many psychiatrists recognize that this constitutes an additional risk for suicide, and would welcome better scales for its identification, the question of treatment remains challenging. We need more research to guide us on best practice. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-08/econ-hcw082615.php

What Should You Do if You Know Someone Who Thinking About Suicide?

If you are thinking of suicide or you know someone who is thinking about suicide, GET HELP, NOW!!!! The Suicide Prevention Resource Center http://www.sprc.org/basics/roles-suicide-prevention has some excellent advice about suicide prevention http://www.sprc.org/basics/roles-suicide-prevention
Resources:

Suicide Prevention
http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pub/youth_suicide.html

Teen Suicide Overview
http://www.teensuicidestatistics.com/

Teen’s Health’s Suicide
http://kidshealth.org/teen/your_mind/feeling_sad/suicide.html

American Academy of Adolescent Psychiatry http://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/Facts_for_Families_Pages/Teen_Suicide_10.aspx

Suicide Prevention Resource Center
http://www.sprc.org/basics/roles-suicide-prevention

Teen Depression
http://helpguide.org/mental/depression_teen.htm

Jared Story.Com
http://www.jaredstory.com/teen_epidemic.html

CNN Report about suicide http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/10/20/lia.latina.suicides/index.html

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
http://www.afsp.org This group is dedicated to advancing the knowledge of suicide and the ability to prevent it.

SA\VE – Suicide Awareness\Voices of Education
http://www.save.org SA\VE offers information on suicide prevention. Call (800) SUICIDE

About.Com’s Depression In Young Children http://depression.about.com/od/child/Young_Children.htm

Psych Central’s Depression In Young Children http://depression.about.com/od/child/Young_Children.htm

Psychiatric News’ Study Helps Pinpoint Children With Depression
http://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/newsarticle.aspx?articleid=106034

Family Doctor’s What Is Depression?
http://familydoctor.org/familydoctor/en/diseases-conditions/depression.html

WebMD’s Depression In Children
http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/depression-children

Healthline’s Is Your Child Depressed?
http://www.healthline.com/hlvideo-5min/how-to-help-your-child-through-depression-517095449

Medicine.Net’s Depression In Children http://www.onhealth.com/depression_in_children/article.htm

If you or your child needs help for depression or another illness, then go to a reputable medical provider. There is nothing wrong with taking the steps necessary to get well.

Where information leads to Hope. © Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©
http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©
http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©
https://drwilda.com/

Tags: BRIDGE-II-MIX, Depression, Depressive Mixed State, Depressive States, European College of Neuropsychopharmacology, How can we prevent suicide? Major study shows risk factors associated with depression, Risk factors associated with Depression, Science Daily, Suicide, Suicide Prevention

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories Dr Wilda

University of North Carolina Chapel Hill study: Stress felt by children shows up in their art

9 Dec

Both the culture and the economy are experiencing turmoil. For some communities, the unsettled environment is a new phenomenon, for other communities, children have been stressed for generations. According to the article, Understanding Depression which was posted at the Kids Health site:

Depression is the most common mental health problem in the United States. Each year it affects 17 million people of all age groups, races, and economic backgrounds.
As many as 1 in every 33 children may have depression; in teens, that number may be as high as 1 in 8. http://kidshealth.org/parent/emotions/feelings/understanding_depression.html

Jyoti Madhusoodanan and Nature magazine reported in the Scientific American article, Stress Alters Children’s Genomes:

Growing up in a stressful social environment leaves lasting marks on young chromosomes, a study of African American boys has revealed. Telomeres, repetitive DNA sequences that protect the ends of chromosomes from fraying over time, are shorter in children from poor and unstable homes than in children from more nurturing families…
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stress-alters-childrens-genomes/?WT.mc_id=SA_Facebook

Not only are the child’s gene’s altered, but there are behavioral indications of the stress being felt by the child.

Will Huntsberry of NPR wrote in the article, Kids’ Drawings Speak Volumes About Home:

When children reach 6 years old, their drawings matter.

Not because of those purple unicorns or pinstripe dragons but because of how kids sketch themselves and the very real people in their lives.

In a new study, researchers found that children who experienced chaos at home — including high levels of noise, excessive crowding, clutter and lack of structure — were more likely to draw themselves at a distance from their parents or much smaller in size relative to other figures.

In some cases, these kids drew themselves with drooping arms and indifferent or sad faces.

Their drawings were a reflection of this simple fact: Chaos at home meant parents were interacting with them less and, in many cases, the interactions that were happening were shorter and interrupted.

As a result, kids ended up with a depreciated sense of self, says Roger Mills-Koonce, who led the study with Bharathi Zvara at UNC-Chapel Hill. To be clear, Mills-Koonce did not blame parents or caretakers but called this kind of stress in the home a “function of poverty….” http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/12/08/368693069/kids-drawings-speak-volumes-about-home

Citation:

The Mediating Role of Parenting in the Associations Between Household Chaos and Children’s Representations of Family Dysfunction

Zvara, B. J., Mills-Koonce, W. R., Garrett-Peters, P., Wagner, N. J., Vernon-Feagans, L., Cox, M., & the Family Life Project Key Contributors

2014

From the abstract: “Children’s drawings are thought to reflect their mental representations of self and their interpersonal relations within families. Household chaos is believed to disrupt key proximal processes related to optimal development. The present study examines the mediating role of parenting behaviors in the relations between two measures of household chaos, instability and disorganization, and how they may be evidenced in children’s representations of family dysfunction as derived from their drawings. The sample (N = 962) is from a longitudinal study of rural poverty exploring the ways in which child, family, and contextual factors shape development over time. Findings reveal that, after controlling for numerous factors including child and primary caregiver covariates, there were significant indirect effects from cumulative family disorganization, but not cumulative family instability, on children’s representation of family dysfunction through parenting behaviors. Results suggest that the proximal effects of daily disorganization outweigh the effects of periodic instability overtime.”

Related Project(s):

Children Living in Rural Poverty: The Continuation of the Family Life Project
Family Life Project

Available here: Attachment & Human Development

Or, you may utilize your local academic library to locate this copyrighted material.

Citation: Zvara, B. J., Mills-Koonce, W. R., Garrett-Peters, P., Wagner, N. J., Vernon-Feagans, L., Cox, M., & the Family Life Project Key Contributors. (2014). The mediating role of parenting in the associations between household chaos and children’s representations of family dysfunction. Attachment & Human Development. Advance online publication. doi:10.1080/14616734.2014.966124

DOI: 10.1080/14616734.2014.966124

http://fpg.unc.edu/resources/mediating-role-parenting-associations-between-household-chaos-and-childrens-representation

If you or your child needs help for depression or another illness, then go to a reputable medical provider. There is nothing wrong with taking the steps necessary to get well.

Schools have to deal with depressed and troubled children

https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/schools-have-to-deal-with-depressed-and-troubled-children/

School psychologists are needed to treat troubled children

https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/school-psychologists-are-needed-to-treat-troubled-children/

Resources:

About.Com’s Depression In Young Children http://depression.about.com/od/child/Young_Children.htm
Psych Central’s Depression In Young Children http://depression.about.com/od/child/Young_Children.htm
Psychiatric News’ Study Helps Pinpoint Children With Depression http://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/newsarticle.aspx?articleid=106034
Family Doctor’s What Is Depression? http://familydoctor.org/familydoctor/en/diseases-conditions/depression.html
WebMD’s Depression In Children http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/depression-children
Healthline’s Is Your Child Depressed? http://www.healthline.com/hlvideo-5min/how-to-help-your-child-through-depression-517095449
Medicine.Net’s Depression In Children http://www.onhealth.com/depression_in_children/article.htm

Where information leads to Hope. © Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©

http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©

http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©

https://drwilda.com/

For exclusive content: THE OLD BLACK FART
Subscribe at http://beta.tidbitts.com/dr-wilda-the-old-black-fart/the-old-black-fart

Tags: Children, chronic stress, Depression, Disadvantaged environments affect genetic material study finds, environment, genetic sensitivity, health, Kids' Drawings Speak Volumes About Home:, NPR, Social disadvantage, social environment, Stress, Stress Alters Children's Genomes, The Mediating Role of Parenting in the Associations Between Household Chaos and Children's Representations of Family Dysfunction, Troubled Children, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories Dr Wilda

Tulane University Medical School study: Family violence affects the DNA of children

17 Jun

Moi reported about the effect stress has on genes in Penn State study: Stress alters children’s genomes https://drwilda.com/2014/04/08/penn-state-study-stress-alters-childrens-genomes/ A Tulane Medical School study finds that family violence or trauma alters a child’s genomes.

Science Daily reported in the article, Family violence leaves genetic imprint on children:

A new Tulane University School of Medicine study finds that the more fractured families are by domestic violence or trauma, the more likely that children will bear the scars down to their DNA.
Researchers discovered that children in homes affected by domestic violence, suicide or the incarceration of a family member have significantly shorter telomeres, which is a cellular marker of aging, than those in stable households. The findings are published online in the latest issue of the journal Pediatrics.
Telomeres are the caps at the end of chromosomes that keep them from shrinking when cells replicate. Shorter telomeres are linked to higher risks for heart disease, obesity, cognitive decline, diabetes, mental illness and poor health outcomes in adulthood. Researchers took genetic samples from 80 children ages 5 to 15 in New Orleans and interviewed parents about their home environments and exposures to adverse life events….
The study found that gender moderated the impact of family instability. Traumatic family events were more detrimental to young girls as they were more likely to have shortened telomeres. There was also a surprising protective effect for boys: mothers who had achieved a higher level of education had a positive association with telomere length, but only in boys under 10.
Ultimately, the study suggests that the home environment is an important intervention target to reduce the biological impacts of adversity in the lives of young children, Drury said. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140617102505.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Ftop_news%2Ftop_science+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Top+Science+News%29&utm_content=FaceBook

Citation:

Family violence leaves genetic imprint on children
Date: June 17, 2014
Source: Tulane University
Summary:
Children in homes affected by violence, suicide, or the incarceration of a family member have significantly shorter telomeres -— a cellular marker of aging — than those in stable households. The study suggests that the home environment is an important intervention target to reduce the biological impacts of adversity in the lives of young children.
Journal Reference:
1. S. S. Drury, E. Mabile, Z. H. Brett, K. Esteves, E. Jones, E. A. Shirtcliff, K. P. Theall. The Association of Telomere Length With Family Violence and Disruption. PEDIATRICS, 2014; 134 (1): e128 DOI: 10.1542/peds.2013-3415

Here is the press release from Tulane University:

Study: Family violence leaves genetic imprint on children
June 16, 2014
Keith Brannon
Phone: 504-862-8789

kbrannon@tulane.edu
A new Tulane University School of Medicine study finds that the more fractured families are by domestic violence or trauma, the more likely that children will bear the scars down to their DNA.
Researchers discovered that children in homes affected by domestic violence, suicide or the incarceration of a family member have significantly shorter telomeres, which is a cellular marker of aging, than those in stable households. The findings are published online in the latest issue of the journal Pediatrics.
Telomeres are the caps at the end of chromosomes that keep them from shrinking when cells replicate. Shorter telomeres are linked to higher risks for heart disease, obesity, cognitive decline, diabetes, mental illness and poor health outcomes in adulthood. Researchers took genetic samples from 80 children ages 5 to 15 in New Orleans and interviewed parents about their home environments and exposures to adverse life events.
“Family-level stressors, such as witnessing a family member get hurt, created an environment that affected the DNA within the cells of the children,” said lead author Dr. Stacy Drury, director of the Behavioral and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Laboratory at Tulane. “The greater the number of exposures these kids had in life, the shorter their telomeres were – and this was after controlling for many other factors, including socioeconomic status, maternal education, parental age and the child’s age.”
The study found that gender moderated the impact of family instability. Traumatic family events were more detrimental to young girls as they were more likely to have shortened telomeres. There was also a surprising protective effect for boys: mothers who had achieved a higher level of education had a positive association with telomere length, but only in boys under 10.
Ultimately, the study suggests that the home environment is an important intervention target to reduce the biological impacts of adversity in the lives of young children, Drury said.

See, School psychologists are needed to treat troubled children https://drwilda.com/2012/02/27/school-psychologists-are-needed-to-treat-troubled-children/

Our goal as a society should be:
A healthy child in a healthy family who attends a healthy school in a healthy neighborhood ©

Schools have to deal with depressed and troubled children https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/schools-have-to-deal-with-depressed-and-troubled-children/

School psychologists are needed to treat troubled children https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/school-psychologists-are-needed-to-treat-troubled-children/

Battling teen addiction: ‘Recovery high schools’ https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/battling-teen-addiction-recovery-high-schools/

Resources:

About.Com’s Depression In Young Children http://depression.about.com/od/child/Young_Children.htm

Psych Central’s Depression In Young Children http://depression.about.com/od/child/Young_Children.htm

Psychiatric News’ Study Helps Pinpoint Children With Depression
http://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/newsarticle.aspx?articleid=106034

Family Doctor’s What Is Depression? http://familydoctor.org/familydoctor/en/diseases-conditions/depression.html

WebMD’s Depression In Children http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/depression-children

Healthline’s Is Your Child Depressed? http://www.healthline.com/hlvideo-5min/how-to-help-your-child-through-depression-517095449

Medicine.Net’s Depression In Children http://www.onhealth.com/depression_in_children/article.htm

If you or your child needs help for depression or another illness, then go to a reputable medical provider. There is nothing wrong with taking the steps necessary to get well.

Where information leads to Hope. © Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART© http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com

Dr. Wilda Reviews © http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda © https://drwilda.com/

Tags: Adverse Child Experiences Study, and children’s telomere length, Calming Schools by Focusing on Well-Being of Troubled Students, chronic stress, Depression, Disadvantaged environments affect genetic material study finds, environment, Family violence leaves genetic imprint on children, genetic sensitivity, health, Research Traces Impacts of Childhood Adversity, science, Social disadvantage, social environment, Stress, Stress Alters Children's Genomes, Troubled Children

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories Dr Wilda

Harvard study: High doses of antidepressants appear to increase risk of self-harm in children and young adults

29 Apr

Medical Press reported in the article, High doses of antidepressants appear to increase risk of self-harm in children young adult:

Children and young adults who start antidepressant therapy at high doses, rather than the “modal” [average or typical] prescribed doses, appear to be at greater risk for suicidal behavior during the first 90 days of treatment.
A previous meta-analysis by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of antidepressant trials suggested that children who received antidepressants had twice the rate of suicidal ideation and behavior than children who were given a placebo. The authors of the current study sought to examine suicidal behavior and antidepressant dose, and whether risk depended on a patient’s age.
The study used data from 162,625 people (between the ages of 10 to 64 years) with depression who started antidepressant treatment with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor at modal (the most prescribed doses on average) or at higher than modal doses from 1998 through 2010.
The rate of suicidal behavior (deliberate self-harm or DSH) among children and adults (24 years or younger) who started antidepressant therapy at high doses was about twice as high compared with a matched group of patients who received generally prescribed doses. The authors suggest this corresponds to about one additional event of DSH for every 150 patients treated with high-dose therapy. For adults 25 to 64 years old, the difference in risk for suicidal behavior was null. The study does not address why higher doses might lead to higher suicide risk….
“Their findings suggest that higher than modal initial dosing leads to an increased risk for DSH and adds further support to current clinical recommendations to begin treatment with lower antidepressant doses. While initiation at higher than modal doses of antidepressants may be deleterious, this study does not address the effect of dose escalation,” they continue.
“Moreover, while definitive studies on the impact of dose escalation in the face of nonresponse remain to be done, there are promising studies that suggest in certain subgroups, dose escalation can be of benefit. Finally it should be noted that in this study, there was no pre-exposure to post-exposure increase in suicidal behavior after the initiation of antidepressants in youth treated at the modal dosage,” they conclude. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-04-high-doses-antidepressants-self-harm-children.html

Citation:

Online First >
Full content is available to subscribers
Subscribe/Learn More
Original Investigation|April 28, 2014
Antidepressant Dose, Age, and the Risk of Deliberate Self-harm
ONLINE FIRST
Matthew Miller, MD, ScD1; Sonja A. Swanson, ScM2; Deborah Azrael, PhD1; Virginia Pate, PhD, PhD3; Til Stürmer, MD, ScD3
[+] Author Affiliations
JAMA Intern Med. Published online April 28, 2014. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.1053
Text Size: A A A
Article
Figures
Tables
References
Comments
ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT | METHODS | RESULTS | DISCUSSION | CONCLUSIONS | ARTICLE INFORMATION | REFERENCES
Importance A comprehensive meta-analysis of randomized trial data suggests that suicidal behavior is twice as likely when children and young adults are randomized to antidepressants compared with when they are randomized to placebo. Drug-related risk was not elevated for adults older than 24 years. To our knowledge, no study to date has examined whether the risk of suicidal behavior is related to antidepressant dose, and if so, whether risk depends on a patient’s age.
Objective To assess the risk of deliberate self-harm by antidepressant dose, by age group.
Design, Setting, and Participants This was a propensity score–matched cohort study using population-based health care utilization data from 162 625 US residents with depression ages 10 to 64 years who initiated antidepressant therapy with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors at modal or at higher than modal doses from January 1, 1998, through December 31, 2010.
Main Outcomes and Measures International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9) external cause of injury codes E950.x-E958.x (deliberate self-harm).
Results The rate of deliberate self-harm among children and adults 24 years of age or younger who initiated high-dose therapy was approximately twice as high as among matched patients initiating modal-dose therapy (hazard ratio [HR], 2.2 [95% CI, 1.6-3.0]), corresponding to approximately 1 additional event for every 150 such patients treated with high-dose (instead of modal-dose) therapy. For adults 25 to 64 years of age, the absolute risk of suicidal behavior was far lower and the effective risk difference null (HR, 1.2 [95% CI, 0.8-1.9]).
Conclusions and Relevance Children and young adults initiating therapy with antidepressants at high-therapeutic (rather than modal-therapeutic) doses seem to be at heightened risk of deliberate self-harm. Considered in light of recent meta-analyses concluding that the efficacy of antidepressant therapy for youth seems to be modest, and separate evidence that antidepressant dose is generally unrelated to therapeutic efficacy, our findings offer clinicians an additional incentive to avoid initiating pharmacotherapy at high-therapeutic doses and to closely monitor patients starting antidepressants, especially youth, for several months.

Here is the press release from Harvard:

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
28-Apr-2014

Contact: Marge Dwyer
mhdwyer@hsph.harvard.edu
617-432-8416
The JAMA Network Journals
High doses of antidepressants appear to increase risk of self-harm in children young adult
Bottom Line:
Children and young adults who start antidepressant therapy at high doses, rather than the “modal” [average or typical] prescribed doses, appear to be at greater risk for suicidal behavior during the first 90 days of treatment.
Author:
Matthew Miller, M.D., Sc.D., of the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, and colleagues.
Background:
A previous meta-analysis by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of antidepressant trials suggested that children who received antidepressants had twice the rate of suicidal ideation and behavior than children who were given a placebo. The authors of the current study sought to examine suicidal behavior and antidepressant dose, and whether risk depended on a patient’s age.
How the Study Was Conducted:
The study used data from 162,625 people (between the ages of 10 to 64 years) with depression who started antidepressant treatment with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor at modal (the most prescribed doses on average) or at higher than modal doses from 1998 through 2010.
Results: The rate of suicidal behavior (deliberate self-harm or DSH) among children and adults (24 years or younger) who started antidepressant therapy at high doses was about twice as high compared with a matched group of patients who received generally prescribed doses. The authors suggest this corresponds to about one additional event of DSH for every 150 patients treated with high-dose therapy. For adults 25 to 64 years old, the difference in risk for suicidal behavior was null. The study does not address why higher doses might lead to higher suicide risk.
Discussion: “Considered in light of recent meta-analyses concluding that the efficacy of antidepressant therapy for youth seems to be modest, and separate evidence that dose is generally unrelated to the therapeutic efficacy of antidepressants, our findings offer clinicians an additional incentive to avoid initiating pharmacotherapy at high-therapeutic doses and to monitor all patients starting antidepressants, especially youth, for several months and regardless of history of DSH.”
(JAMA Intern Med. Published online April 28, 2014. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.1053. Available pre-embargo to the media at http://media.jamanetwork.com.)
Editor’s Note: Authors made a conflict of interest and funding disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.
Commentary: Initial Dose of Antidepressants, Suicidal Behavior in Youth
In a related commentary, David A. Brent, M.D., of the University of Pittsburgh, and Robert Gibbons, Ph.D., of the University of Chicago, write: “In summary Miller et al are to be commended on a thoughtful and careful analysis of the effects of initiating antidepressants at higher than modal doses.”
“Their findings suggest that higher than modal initial dosing leads to an increased risk for DSH and adds further support to current clinical recommendations to begin treatment with lower antidepressant doses. While initiation at higher than modal doses of antidepressants may be deleterious, this study does not address the effect of dose escalation,” they continue.
“Moreover, while definitive studies on the impact of dose escalation in the face of nonresponse remain to be done, there are promising studies that suggest in certain subgroups, dose escalation can be of benefit. Finally it should be noted that in this study, there was no pre-exposure to post-exposure increase in suicidal behavior after the initiation of antidepressants in youth treated at the modal dosage,” they conclude.
(JAMA Intern Med. Published online April 28, 2014. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.14016. Available pre-embargo to the media at http://media.jamanetwork.com.)
Editor’s Note: Authors made conflict of interest and funding disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.
###
Media Advisory:
To contact author Matthew Miller, M.D., Sc.D., call Marge Dwyer at 617-432-8416 or email mhdwyer@hsph.harvard.edu. To contact commentary author David A. Brent, M.D., call Gloria Kreps at 412-586-9764 or email krepsga@upmc.edu.

What Should You Do if You Know Someone Who Thinking About Suicide?

Resources:

Teen’s Health’s Suicide http://kidshealth.org/teen/your_mind/feeling_sad/suicide.html

American Academy of Adolescent Psychiatry http://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/Facts_for_Families_Pages/Teen_Suicide_10.aspx
Suicide Prevention Resource Center http://www.sprc.org/basics/roles-suicide-prevention

Teen Depression http://helpguide.org/mental/depression_teen.htm

Jared Story.Com http://www.jaredstory.com/teen_epidemic.html
CNN Report about suicide http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/10/20/lia.latina.suicides/index.html
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
http://www.afsp.org This group is dedicated to advancing the knowledge of suicide and the ability to prevent it.

SA\VE – Suicide Awareness\Voices of Education
http://www.save.org SA\VE offers information on suicide prevention. Call (800) SUICIDE

Youth Suicide Prevention
About.Com’s Depression In Young Children http://depression.about.com/od/child/Young_Children.htm

Psych Central’s Depression In Young Children http://depression.about.com/od/child/Young_Children.htm

Psychiatric News’ Study Helps Pinpoint Children With Depression
http://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/newsarticle.aspx?articleid=106034

Family Doctor’s What Is Depression? http://familydoctor.org/familydoctor/en/diseases-conditions/depression.html

WebMD’s Depression In Children http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/depression-children

Healthline’s Is Your Child Depressed? http://www.healthline.com/hlvideo-5min/how-to-help-your-child-through-depression-517095449

Medicine.Net’s Depression In Children http://www.onhealth.com/depression_in_children/article.htm

If you or your child needs help for depression or another illness, then go to a reputable medical provider. There is nothing wrong with taking the steps necessary to get well.

Related:
University of California, San Francisco study identifies most common reasons for children’s mental health hospitalizations https://drwilda.com/tag/depression/

GAO report: Children’s mental health services are lacking https://drwilda.com/2013/01/12/gao-report-childrens-mental-health-services-are-lacking/

Schools have to deal with depressed and troubled children https://drwilda.com/2011/11/15/schools-have-to-deal-with-depressed-and-troubled-children/

Where information leads to Hope. © Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:
COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART© http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com

Dr. Wilda Reviews © http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda © https://drwilda.com/

Tags: adolescent psychiatry, American Academy of Adolescent Psychiatry, antidepressant, Antidepressant Dose Age and the Risk of Deliberate Self-harm, antidepressant therapy, antidepressants, Depression, Harvard School of Public health, health, High doses of antidepressants appear to increase risk of self-harm in children young adult, JAMA Psychiatry, JaredStory.com, Job, Mathew K. Nock, medicine, Mental Health, profound sadness, Study Questions Effectiveness of Therapy for Suicidal Teenagers, Suicide, Suicide Prevention, Teen’s Health, Teens and suicide, The Suicide Prevention Resource Center

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories Dr Wilda

‘Peer Counseling’ in schools

28 Apr

Moi wrote about a high school support program in Helping troubled children: The ‘Reconnecting Youth Program’:
Many children arrive at school with mental health and social issues. In School psychologists are needed to treat troubled children:

Mark Phillips, professor emeritus of secondary education at San Francisco State University wrote the article, School psychologists: Shortage amid increased need which discusses the need for psychological support in schools.
The adolescent suicide rate continues to rise, with each suicide a dramatic reminder that the lives of a significant number of adolescents are filled with anxiety and stress. Most schools have more than a handful of kids wrestling with significant emotional problems, and schools at all levels face an ongoing challenge related to school violence and bullying, both physical and emotional.
Yet in many schools there is inadequate professional psychological support for students.
Although statistics indicate that there is a significant variation from state to state (between 2005- and 2011 the ratio of students per school psychologist in New Mexico increased by 180%, while in the same period the ratio decreased in Utah by 34%), the overall ratio is 457:1. That is almost twice that recommended by the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP).
THE NASP noted a shortage of almost 9,000 school psychologists in 2010 and projected a cumulative shortage of close to 15,000 by 2020. Mental Health America estimates that only 1 in 5 children in need of mental health services actually receive the needed services. These gross statistics also omit the special need of under funded schools and the increased roles school psychologists are being asked to play….
Even with the psychological services that should be provided and often aren’t, schools can’t fully prevent suicides, acts of violence, bullying, or the daily stresses that weigh on kids shoulders. The malaise runs deeper and broader.
Still schools need more resources than they receive in order to provide more programs that actively identify and counsel those kids that need help. At the very least, they need to alleviate some of the stress these kids are experiencing and to help improve the quality of their daily lives. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/school-psychologists-shortage-amid-increased-need/2012/02/26/gIQAU7psdR_blog.html

It is important to deal with the psychological needs of children because untreated depression can lead to suicide. https://drwilda.com/2012/02/27/school-psychologists-are-needed-to-treat-troubled-children/ In addition to psychological programs, schools can offer other resources to help students succeed in school and in life.

Rebecca Jones of Ed News Colorado wrote about the Reconnecting Youth Program in the article, Reconnecting Youth program boosts teens.
http://www.ednewscolorado.org/2012/10/30/51106-reconnecting-youth-program-boosts-teens https://drwilda.com/2012/10/30/helping-troubled-children-the-reconnecting-youth-program/
Another model many schools are trying is peer counseling.

Evie Blad reported in the Education Week article, Schools Explore Benefits of Peer Counseling about peer counseling:

Schools in Baltimore, New York City, New Jersey, and North Carolina have used the program—created by the Princeton, N.J.-based Center for Supportive Schools—to boost attendance, academic persistence, and graduation rates.
At a time when schools are increasingly recognizing the important role social and emotional factors can play in academic success, leaders are wasting a valuable resource if they don’t enlist energetic students to help their peers, said Daniel F. Oscar, the president and chief executive officer of the Center for Supportive Schools.
“It becomes a very positive feedback loop where, by the act of helping the school out, that older student is in fact deepening his or her own education,” Mr. Oscar said. “Leadership is increasingly something that we don’t only expect from the person who has the top title in an organization. It’s something we expect from everyone.”
A study by researchers at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. published in the Journal of Educational Research found that Peer Group Connection had notable success raising graduation rates for Latino males.
Promising Signs
In a randomized control study, researchers tracked four-year graduation rates for 268 participating students at a high-poverty, mid-Atlantic, urban high school that is not named in the study. Of the program’s participants, 77 percent graduated high school in four years, compared with 68 percent of their nonparticipating peers. Latino males in the experimental group had an 81 percent graduation rate, compared to 63 percent in the control group.
Peer Group Connection is more successful than some other peer-mentoring efforts because it is integrated into the school day, incorporates several meetings with students’ families to reinforce lessons and supports, and requires buy-in from principals and teachers before a school implements the program, the researchers wrote.
The program employs a “train the trainer” model under which juniors and seniors complete a yearlong, credit-bearing leadership course where they practice group exercises and discussions. Older students also meet once a week with younger students to complete the exercises they practiced in class.
The class is led by teachers who received extensive training on the program, primarily through an 11-day course and a retreat with Center for Supportive Schools staff.
That training helps prepare teachers for a level of honesty they might not typically experience with students, said Sherry Barr, the vice president of the organization.
“When they go through it themselves and experience what it means to them to break down some of those barriers, that’s a very powerful experience,” Ms. Barr said. “They sort of leave transformed in the sense that they really want to have that experience with their students.”
As those teachers work with peer mentors in training, those discussions—often centered on experiences that can form hurdles for school completion and persistence—can be emotional.
On an April afternoon in Baltimore, peer leaders at the Academy for College and Career Exploration practiced how they would react to various text messages from peers, including nude photos and an angry message from a friend. Would they forward the photos to others? Would they respond to anger with anger?
“Keep it real,” teacher Candice Boone told senior Jada Davis, urging her to avoid simply telling adults in the room what she thought they’d want to hear about how she would respond to the hypothetical angry text message.
“You know I am,” Ms. Davis said, admitting that she “most likely would be going back and forth” with her friend if she got such a message.
Students also discussed the way girls are bullied and teased if they send a nude photo to a boyfriend, only to have it circulating on social media the next day. It’s a side of students teachers don’t always see, Ms. Boone said…. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/04/23/29peerconnection.h33.html

The Center for Supportive Schools is one of the primary providers of training for peer counselors.

Here is what the Center for Supportive Schools says about Peer Counseling.

Peer Group Connection (PGC)
Through Peer Group Connection (PGC), CSS trains school faculty to teach leadership courses to select groups of older students, who in turn educate and support younger students. Our goal is to help schools enable and inspire young people to become engaged leaders who positively influence their peers. The CSS peer-to-peer student leadership model taps into schools’ most underutilized resources – students – and enlists them in strengthening the educational offerings of a school while simultaneously advancing their own learning, growth, and development.
Transition to High School
High School Juniors and Seniors Supporting Freshmen in Their Transition to High School
Peer Group Connection (PGC) for High Schools is an evidence-based program that supports and eases students’ successful transition from middle to high school. The program taps into the power of high school juniors and seniors to create a nurturing environment for incoming freshmen. Once per week, pairs of junior and senior peer leaders meet with groups of 10-14 freshmen in outreach sessions designed to strengthen relationships among students across grades. These peer leaders are simultaneously enrolled in a daily, for-credit, year-long leadership course taught by school faculty during regular school hours. PGC is CSS’s seminal peer leadership program, and has been implemented with a 70% sustainability rate in more than 175 high schools since 1979. A recently released, four-year longitudinal, randomized-control study conducted by Rutgers University and funded by the United States Department of Health and Human Services found that, among other major results, PGC improves the graduation rates of student participants in an inner city public school by ten percentage points and cuts by half the number of male students who would otherwise drop out.
http://supportiveschools.org/solutions/peer-group-connection/

Not all are supportive of peer counseling.

Andrew S. Latham wrote in the 1997 Education Leadership article, Research Link / Peer Counseling Proceed with Caution:

One of Lewis and Lewis’s concerns is that students serving as peer counselors are increasingly being asked to shoulder a burden that should be overseen only by trained, seasoned professionals. In a sobering study, the two researchers compared suicide rates among schools with no peer-led suicide-prevention program; schools with peer-led prevention programs overseen by a noncounselor (for example, a teacher or building administrator); and schools with peer-led prevention programs overseen by a certified counselor, psychologist, or social worker. Shockingly, the 38 schools with the noncounselor-led peer programs had the highest ratio of student suicides: Between 1991 and 1993, 11 of those 38 schools (29 percent) reported at least one suicide, as opposed to 7 of 55 schools (13 percent) with no prevention program at all, and just 5 of 65 schools (8 percent) with a counselor-led peer program….
Although Lewis and Lewis focus on suicide-prevention programs, we can extend this argument to other health and safety issues teens face, such as AIDS and drug and alcohol abuse. As teens confront the problems of the 1990s, they want concrete advice, not just an empathetic listener. Morey and colleagues (1993) confirmed this fact when they used a stepwise regression to identify factors that contribute to students’ satisfaction with peer counseling. Two such factors were “empathy and problem identification” and “empathy and problem solving,” indicating that students want help from peers who are willing to listen and understand their problems, and who can suggest ways to address those problems.
Professional Support Is Critical
These studies point to the need for students to receive extensive training and professional support both before and throughout their work with their peers. If such support is given, peer programs have tremendous potential.
A case in point: O’Hara and colleagues (1996) studied the effects of a student-led AIDS prevention program in an alternative school for at-risk youth. Following an initial interview, the peer counselors were trained over the course of eight weeks, including five classroom sessions, two retreats, and a trip to a local clinic for sexually transmitted diseases. Peer counselors with attendance problems were dropped from the program. Those who successfully completed the program then conducted two carefully structured large-group sessions with their peers, followed by two small-group sessions and various schoolwide activities. The results were impressive: pre- and post-intervention student surveys revealed that the number of students who intended to use condoms each time they had sex rose from 55 to 65 percent, while those reporting they had never used a condom dropped from 15 to 4 percent.
The lesson from these examples is that peer-led programs must be adopted carefully, particularly when dealing with the high-stakes problems that many teenagers face today. In fact, professional intervention may be preferable to peer support for potentially lethal issues, such as teen suicide…. http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/oct97/vol55/num02/Peer-Counseling@-Proceed-with-Caution.aspx

For research on peer counseling programs, see http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/cg/rh/counseffective.asp

Our goal as a society should be:

A healthy child in a healthy family who attends a healthy school in a healthy neighborhood ©

Schools have to deal with depressed and troubled children
https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/schools-have-to-deal-with-depressed-and-troubled-children/

School psychologists are needed to treat troubled children
https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/school-psychologists-are-needed-to-treat-troubled-children/

Battling teen addiction: ‘Recovery high schools’
https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/battling-teen-addiction-recovery-high-schools/

Where information leads to Hope. © Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART© http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews © http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda © https://drwilda.com/

Tags: Calming Schools by Focusing on Well-Being of Troubled Students, Center for Supportive Schools, chronic stress, Depression, health, High School, Peer Counseling, Peer Group Connection, PGC, Reconnecting Youth Program, School Psychologist, School psychologists, School psychologists: Shortage amid increased need, Schools Explore Benefits of Peer Counseling about peer counseling, science, Social disadvantage, social environment, Stress, Troubled Children, Troubled Teens

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories Dr Wilda

Penn State study: Stress alters children’s genomes

8 Apr

Moi said in Schools have to deal with depressed and troubled children:
Both the culture and the economy are experiencing turmoil. For some communities, the unsettled environment is a new phenomenon, for other communities, children have been stressed for generations. According to the article, Understanding Depression which was posted at the Kids Health site:

Depression is the most common mental health problem in the United States. Each year it affects 17 million people of all age groups, races, and economic backgrounds.
As many as 1 in every 33 children may have depression; in teens, that number may be as high as 1 in 8. http://kidshealth.org/parent/emotions/feelings/understanding_depression.html

Schools are developing strategies to deal with troubled kids.

Jyoti Madhusoodanan and Nature magazine reported in the Scientific American article, Stress Alters Children’s Genomes:

Growing up in a stressful social environment leaves lasting marks on young chromosomes, a study of African American boys has revealed. Telomeres, repetitive DNA sequences that protect the ends of chromosomes from fraying over time, are shorter in children from poor and unstable homes than in children from more nurturing families.
When researchers examined the DNA of 40 boys from major US cities at age 9, they found that the telomeres of children from harsh home environments were 19% shorter than those of children from advantaged backgrounds. The length of telomeres is often considered to be a biomarker of chronic stress.
The study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, brings researchers closer to understanding how social conditions in childhood can influence long-term health, says Elissa Epel, a health psychologist at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved in the research.
Participants’ DNA samples and socio-economic data were collected as part of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, an effort funded by the National Institutes of Health to track nearly 5,000 children, the majority of whom were born to unmarried parents in large US cities in 1998–2000. Children’s environments were rated on the basis of their mother’s level of education; the ratio of a family’s income to needs; harsh parenting; and whether family structure was stable, says lead author Daniel Notterman, a molecular biologist at Pennsylvania State University in Hershey.
The telomeres of boys whose mothers had a high-school diploma were 32% longer compared with those of boys whose mothers had not finished high school. Children who came from stable families had telomeres that were 40% longer than those of children who had experienced many changes in family structure, such as a parent with multiple partners.
Genetic links
The link between stressful home environments and telomere length is moderated by genetic variants in pathways that process two chemical transmitters in the brain, serotonin and dopamine, the study found. Previous studies have correlated variants in some of the genes studied, such as TPH2, with depression, bipolar disorder and other mental-health issues. Variants of another gene, 5-HTT, reduce the amount of the protein that recycles serotonin in nerve synapses. Some alleles of these genes are thought to increase the sensitivity of carriers to external risks…. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stress-alters-childrens-genomes/?WT.mc_id=SA_Facebook

Citation:

Social disadvantage, genetic sensitivity, and children’s telomere length
1. Colter Mitchella,
2. John Hobcraftb,
3. Sara S. McLanahanc,1,
4. Susan Rutherford Siegeld,
5. Arthur Bergd,
6. Jeanne Brooks-Gunne,
7. Irwin Garfinkelf, and
8. Daniel Nottermand,g,1
Author Affiliations
Significance
This paper makes two contributions to research on the link between the social environment and health. Using data from a birth cohort study, we show that, among African American boys, those who grow up in highly disadvantaged environments have shorter telomeres (at age 9) than boys who grow up in highly advantaged environments. We also find that the association between the social environment and telomere length (TL) is moderated by genetic variation within the serotonin and dopamine pathways. Boys with the highest genetic sensitivity scores had the shortest TL when exposed to disadvantaged environments and the longest TL when exposed to advantaged environments. To our knowledge, this report is the first to document a gene–social environment interaction for TL, a biomarker of stress exposure.
Abstract
Disadvantaged social environments are associated with adverse health outcomes. This has been attributed, in part, to chronic stress. Telomere length (TL) has been used as a biomarker of chronic stress: TL is shorter in adults in a variety of contexts, including disadvantaged social standing and depression. We use data from 40, 9-y-old boys participating in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to extend this observation to African American children. We report that exposure to disadvantaged environments is associated with reduced TL by age 9 y. We document significant associations between low income, low maternal education, unstable family structure, and harsh parenting and TL. These effects were moderated by genetic variants in serotonergic and dopaminergic pathways. Consistent with the differential susceptibility hypothesis, subjects with the highest genetic sensitivity scores had the shortest TL when exposed to disadvantaged social environments and the longest TL when exposed to advantaged environments.
gene–environment
adversity
senescence
Footnotes
↵1To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail: dan1@princeton.edu or mclanaha@princeton.edu.
Author contributions: C.M., J.H., S.S.M., J.B.-G., I.G., and D.N. designed research; C.M., J.H., S.S.M., J.B.-G., I.G., and D.N. performed research; S.R.S. and D.N. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; C.M., J.H., S.S.M., A.B., J.B.-G., I.G., and D.N. analyzed data; and C.M. and D.N. wrote the paper.
Reviewers: T.E.S., Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles; S.J.S., Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article contains supporting information online at http://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1404293111/-/DCSupplemental.
Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.

Here is the press release from Penn State:

Disadvantaged environments affect genetic material, study finds
By Scott Gilbert
April 8, 2014
HERSHEY, Pa. — Children experiencing chronic stress from a disadvantaged life have shorter telomeres than their advantaged peers, according to a study led by Dr. Daniel Notterman, vice dean for research and graduate studies, and professor of pediatrics, and biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State College of Medicine.
Telomeres are DNA sequences at the end of each chromosome that protect the ends of the chromosomes from damage. They vary in length per person and shrink as a person ages, a process that may be linked to health and disease.
The negative health effects of long-term chronic stress may be connected to the shortening of telomeres. Telomeres shorten faster in individuals experiencing chronic stress, such as that from living in a disadvantaged environment.
Notterman and colleagues studied genetic information from 40 9-year-old African-American boys.
Boys from disadvantaged environments had shorter telomeres than peers in the study who were not. In addition, the effect of environment on telomere length was mediated by genes involved with the function of two neurotransmitters, dopamine and serotonin. Neurotransmitters help transmit signals between brain cells and send information throughout the body.
For boys with genetic variants of dopamine or serotonin pathways that conferred greater sensitivity to environmental signals associated with stress, those from disadvantaged environments had the shortest telomeres, and those from advantaged environments had the longest.
The results suggest a link between genetic factors and social environment associated with changing telomere length and provides a biomarker for chronic stress exposure in children as young as 9, according to the authors.
Researchers also from Penn State College of Medicine are Arthur Berg, associate professor of biostatistics and bioinformatics, and Sue Siegel, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology.
The study is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and was supported by the National Institutes of Health-National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the Penn State Clinical and Translational Science Institute. For more information, visit PNAS’s Early Edition.
Sarah D. Sparks writes in the Education Week article, Research Traces Impacts of Childhood Adversity:
The stress of a spelling bee or a challenging science project can enhance a student’s focus and promote learning. But the stress of a dysfunctional or unstable home life can poison a child’s cognitive ability for a lifetime, according to new research.
While educators and psychologists have said for decades that the effects of poverty interfere with students’ academic achievement, new evidence from cognitive and neuroscience is showing exactly how adversity in childhood damages students’ long-term learning and health….
Good experiences, like nurturing parents and rich early-child-care environments, help build and reinforce neural connections in areas such as language development and self-control, while adversity weakens those connections.
Over time, the connections, good or bad, stabilize, “and you can’t go back and rewire; you have to adapt,” Dr. Shonkoff said. “If you’ve built on strong foundations, that’s good, and if you have weak foundations, the brain has to work harder, and it costs more to the brain and society…”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides access to the peer-reviewed publications resulting from The ACE Study. http://acestudy.org/

See, School psychologists are needed to treat troubled children https://drwilda.com/2012/02/27/school-psychologists-are-needed-to-treat-troubled-children/

Our goal as a society should be:

A healthy child in a healthy family who attends a healthy school in a healthy neighborhood ©

Schools have to deal with depressed and troubled children
https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/schools-have-to-deal-with-depressed-and-troubled-children/

School psychologists are needed to treat troubled children
https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/school-psychologists-are-needed-to-treat-troubled-children/

Battling teen addiction: ‘Recovery high schools’
https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/battling-teen-addiction-recovery-high-schools/

Resources:
1. About.Com’s Depression In Young Children
http://depression.about.com/od/child/Young_Children.htm

2. Psych Central’s Depression In Young Children
http://depression.about.com/od/child/Young_Children.htm

3. Psychiatric News’ Study Helps Pinpoint Children With Depression http://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/newsarticle.aspx?articleid=106034

4. Family Doctor’s What Is Depression?
http://familydoctor.org/familydoctor/en/diseases-conditions/depression.html

5. WebMD’s Depression In Children
http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/depression-children

6. Healthline’s Is Your Child Depressed?
http://www.healthline.com/hlvideo-5min/how-to-help-your-child-through-depression-517095449

7. Medicine.Net’s Depression In Children
http://www.onhealth.com/depression_in_children/article.htm

If you or your child needs help for depression or another illness, then go to a reputable medical provider. There is nothing wrong with taking the steps necessary to get well.

Where information leads to Hope. © Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART© http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com
Dr. Wilda Reviews © http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda © https://drwilda.com/

Tags: Adverse Child Experiences Study, and children’s telomere length, Calming Schools by Focusing on Well-Being of Troubled Students, chronic stress, Depression, Disadvantaged environments affect genetic material study finds, environment, genetic sensitivity, health, Research Traces Impacts of Childhood Adversity, science, Social disadvantage, social environment, Stress, Stress Alters Children's Genomes, Troubled Children

Comments 3 Comments
Categories Dr Wilda

University of California, San Francisco study identifies most common reasons for children’s mental health hospitalizations

23 Mar

Moi wrote about troubled children in Schools have to deal with depressed and troubled children: Both the culture and the economy are experiencing turmoil. For some communities, the unsettled environment is a new phenomenon, for other communities, children have been stressed for generations. According to the article, Understanding Depression which was posted at the Kids Health site:

Depression is the most common mental health problem in the United States. Each year it affects 17 million people of all age groups, races, and economic backgrounds.
As many as 1 in every 33 children may have depression; in teens, that number may be as high as 1 in 8.
Schools are developing strategies to deal with troubled kids…. http://kidshealth.org/parent/emotions/feelings/understanding_depression.html

One strategy in helping children to succeed is to recognize and treat depression.

How Common Is Depression In Children?

According to Mary H. Sarafolean, PhD in the article, Depression In School Age Children and Adolescents

In general, depression affects a person’s physical, cognitive, emotional/affective, and motivational well-being, no matter their age. For example, a child with depression between the ages of 6 and 12 may exhibit fatigue, difficulty with schoolwork, apathy and/or a lack of motivation. An adolescent or teen may be oversleeping, socially isolated, acting out in self-destructive ways and/or have a sense of hopelessness.
Prevalence and Risk Factors
While only 2 percent of pre-teen school-age children and 3-5 percent of teenagers have clinical depression, it is the most common diagnosis of children in a clinical setting (40-50 percent of diagnoses). The lifetime risk of depression in females is 10-25 percent and in males, 5-12 percent. Children and teens who are considered at high risk for depression disorders include:
* children referred to a mental health provider for school problems
* children with medical problems
* gay and lesbian adolescents
* rural vs. urban adolescents
* incarcerated adolescents
* pregnant adolescents
* children with a family history of depression http://www.healthyplace.com/depression/children/recognizing-symptoms-of-depression-in-teens-and-children/

If you or your child has one or more of the risk factors and your child is exhibiting symptoms of prolonged sadness, it might be wise to have your child evaluated for depression.

How to Recognize Depression In Your Child?

MedNet has an excellent article about Depression In Children and how to recognize signs of depression in your child.
Signs and symptoms of depression in children include:

* Irritability or anger
* Continuous feelings of sadness, hopelessness
* Social withdrawal
* Increased sensitivity to rejection
* Changes in appetite — either increased or decreased
* Changes in sleep — sleeplessness or excessive sleep
* Vocal outbursts or crying
* Difficulty concentrating
* Fatigue and low energy
* Physical complaints (such as stomachaches, headaches) that do not respond to
treatment
* Reduced ability to function during events and activities at home or with friends, in school, extracurricular activities, and in other hobbies or interests
* Feelings of worthlessness or guilt
* Impaired thinking or concentration
* Thoughts of death or suicide
Not all children have all of these symptoms. In fact, most will display different symptoms at different times and in different settings. Although some children may continue to function reasonably well in structured environments, most kids with significant depression will suffer a noticeable change in social activities, loss of interest in school and poor academic performance, or a change in appearance. Children may also begin using drugs or alcohol,
especially if they are over the age of 12. http://www.onhealth.com/depression_in_children/article.htm

The best defense for parents is a good awareness of what is going on with their child. As a parent you need to know what is going on in your child’s world. https://drwilda.com/2011/11/15/schools-have-to-deal-with-depressed-and-troubled-children/

Science Daily reported in the article, Study identifies most common, costly reasons for mental health hospitalizations for kids:

Nearly one in 10 hospitalized children have a primary diagnosis of a mental health condition, and depression alone accounts for $1.33 billion in hospital charges annually, according to a new analysis led by UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital.
The study is the first to examine frequency and costs associated with specific inpatient mental health diagnoses for children, and is a step towards creating meaningful measures of the quality of pediatric hospital care.
“This is the first paper to give a clear picture of the mental health reasons kids are admitted to hospitals nationally,” said Naomi Bardach, MD, an assistant professor of pediatrics at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital and lead author. “Mental health hospitalizations have been increasing in kids, up 24% from 2007-2010. Mental health is a priority topic for national quality measures, which are intended to help improve care for all kids.”
The study will be published in the April issue of the journal Pediatrics.
More than 14 million children and adolescents in the United States have a diagnosable mental health disorder, yet little is known about which specific mental health diagnoses are causing children to be hospitalized. In the study, researchers found that depression, bipolar disorder and psychosis are the most common and expensive primary diagnoses for pediatric admissions.
“We now know through our analysis of cost and frequency which diagnoses are the most relevant,” said Bardach. “Next, we need to define what the optimal care is for children with these conditions so that hospitals can consistently deliver the best care for every child, every time.”
Using two national databases — Kids’ Inpatient Database and Pediatric Health Information System — the researchers looked at all hospital discharges in 2009 for patients aged three to 20 years old to determine the frequency of hospitalizations for primary mental health diagnoses. They compared the mental health hospitalizations between free-standing children’s hospitals and hospitals that treat both adults and children, to assess if there was a difference in frequency of diagnoses.
The study found that hospitalizations for children with primary mental health diagnoses were more than three times more frequent at general hospitals than free standing children’s hospitals, which the researchers say could indicate that general hospitals have a greater capacity to deliver inpatient psychiatric care than free-standing children’s hospitals…. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140317084531.htm

Citation:

Study identifies most common, costly reasons for mental health hospitalization

Date: March 17, 2014

Source: University of California, San Francisco

Summary:
Nearly one in 10 hospitalized children have a primary diagnosis of a mental health condition, and depression alone accounts for $1.33 billion in hospital charges annually, according to a new analysis. The study is the first to examine frequency and costs associated with specific inpatient mental health diagnoses for children, and is a step towards creating meaningful measures of the quality of pediatric hospital care.
Journal Reference:
1.Naomi S. Bardach, Tumaini R. Coker, Bonnie T. Zima, J. Michael Murphy, Penelope Knapp, Laura P. Richardson, Glenace Edwall, and Rita Mangione-Smith. Common and Costly Hospitalizations for Pediatric Mental Health Disorders. Pediatrics, March 2014 DOI: 10.1542/peds.2013-3165

Here is the press release from the University of San Francisco:

Study Identifies Most Common, Costly Reasons for Mental Health Hospitalizations for Kids
By Juliana Bunim on March 13, 2014
Nearly one in 10 hospitalized children have a primary diagnosis of a mental health condition, and depression alone accounts for $1.33 billion in hospital charges annually, according to a new analysis led by UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital.
The study is the first to examine frequency and costs associated with specific inpatient mental health diagnoses for children, and is a step towards creating meaningful measures of the quality of pediatric hospital care.
“This is the first paper to give a clear picture of the mental health reasons kids are admitted to hospitals nationally,” said Naomi Bardach, MD, an assistant professor of pediatrics at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital and lead author. “Mental health hospitalizations have been increasing in kids, up 24% from 2007-2010. Mental health is a priority topic for national quality measures, which are intended to help improve care for all kids.”
The study will be published in the April issue of the journal Pediatrics.
More than 4 million children and adolescents in the United States have a diagnosable mental health disorder, yet little is known about which specific mental health diagnoses are causing children to be hospitalized. In the study, researchers found that depression, bipolar disorder and psychosis are the most common and expensive primary diagnoses for pediatric admissions.
“We now know through our analysis of cost and frequency which diagnoses are the most relevant,” said Bardach. “Next, we need to define what the optimal care is for children with these conditions so that hospitals can consistently deliver the best care for every child, every time.”
Using two national databases – Kids’ Inpatient Database and Pediatric Health Information System – the researchers looked at all hospital discharges in 2009 for patients aged three to 20 years old to determine the frequency of hospitalizations for primary mental health diagnoses. They compared the mental health hospitalizations between free-standing children’s hospitals and hospitals that treat both adults and children, to assess if there was a difference in frequency of diagnoses.
The study found that hospitalizations for children with primary mental health diagnoses were more than three times more frequent at general hospitals than free standing children’s hospitals, which the researchers say could indicate that general hospitals have a greater capacity to deliver inpatient psychiatric care than free-standing children’s hospitals.
At both kinds of hospitals, the most common mental health diagnoses were similar (depression, bipolar disorder, and psychosis), which the researchers say supports the creation of diagnosis-specific quality measures for all hospitals that admit children.
Depression accounted for 44.1 percent of all pediatric primary mental health admissions, with charges of $1.33 billion dollars, based on the billing databases used in the study. Bipolar was the second most common diagnosis accounting for 18.1 percent and $702 million, followed by psychosis at 12.1 percent and $540 million.
“These are costly hospitalizations, and being hospitalized is a heavy burden for families and patients. Prevention and wellness is a huge part of the Affordable Care Act, along with controlling costs by delivering great care,” said Bardach. “This study helps us understand that mental health is a key priority. The long term goal is not only to improve hospital care for these kids, but also to understand how to effectively optimize mental health resources in the outpatient world.”
Co-authors include Tumaini Coker, MD, MBA and Bonnie Zima, MD, MPH, both of UCLA; J. Michael Murphy, EdD, Massachusetts General Hospital Boston; Penelope Knapp, MD, UC Davis; Laura Richardson, MD, MPH and Rita Mangione-Smith, MD, MPH, both of the University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle; and Glenace Edwall, PsyD, PhD, MPP, Minnesota State Health Access Data Assistance Center.
The study was supported by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the National Institute for Children’s Health and Human Development.
UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital creates an environment where children and their families find compassionate care at the forefront of scientific discovery, with more than 150 experts in 50 medical specialties serving patients throughout Northern California and beyond. The hospital admits about 5,000 children each year, including 2,000 babies born in the hospital.

If you or your child needs help for depression or another illness, then go to a reputable medical provider. There is nothing wrong with taking the steps necessary to get well.

GAO report: Children’s mental health services are lacking

GAO report: Children’s mental health services are lacking

Schools have to deal with depressed and troubled children:

Schools have to deal with depressed and troubled children

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

Tags: Children's Mental Health, current-events, Depression, Depression in Children, Depression In School Age Children and Adolescents, GAO, General Accounting Office, health, Kids Health, medicine, MedNet, Mental Health, Mental Health Care For Kids Severely Lacking Says GAO, research, science, Study identifies most common costly reasons for mental health hospitalizations for kids, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, Understanding Depression

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories Dr Wilda

University of Florida tries the online counseling program Therapist Assisted Online (TAO)

20 Jan

When parents are packing their children off to college, some are sending children to school who have some severe mental health and emotional issues. Trip Gabriel has an article in the New York Times which outlines the issues some students face while they are at college. In Mental Health Needs Growing At Colleges Gabriel reports:

Stony Brook is typical of American colleges and universities these days, where national surveys show that nearly half of the students who visit counseling centers are coping with serious mental illness, more than double the rate a decade ago. More students take psychiatric medication, and there are more emergencies requiring immediate action.
“It’s so different from how people might stereotype the concept of college counseling, or back in the ’70s students coming in with existential crises: who am I?” said Dr. Hwang, whose staff of 29 includes psychiatrists, clinical psychologists and social workers. “Now they’re bringing in life stories involving extensive trauma, a history of serious mental illness, eating disorders, self-injury, alcohol and other drug use.”
Experts say the trend is partly linked to effective psychotropic drugs (Wellbutrin for depression, Adderall for attention disorder, Abilify for bipolar disorder) that have allowed students to attend college who otherwise might not have functioned in a campus setting.
There is also greater awareness of traumas scarcely recognized a generation ago and a willingness to seek help for those problems, including bulimia, self-cutting and childhood sexual abuse.
The need to help this troubled population has forced campus mental health centers — whose staffs, on average, have not grown in proportion to student enrollment in 15 years — to take extraordinary measures to make do. Some have hospital-style triage units to rank the acuity of students who cross their thresholds. Others have waiting lists for treatment — sometimes weeks long — and limit the number of therapy sessions.
Some centers have time only to “treat students for a crisis, bandaging them up and sending them out,” said Denise Hayes, the president of the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors and the director of counseling at the Claremont Colleges in California.
“It’s very stressful for the counselors,” she said. “It doesn’t feel like why you got into college counseling.”
A recent survey by the American College Counseling Association found that a majority of students seek help for normal post-adolescent trouble like romantic heartbreak and identity crises. But 44 percent in counseling have severe psychological disorders, up from 16 percent in 2000, and 24 percent are on psychiatric medication, up from 17 percent a decade ago.
The most common disorders today: depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, alcohol abuse, attention disorders, self-injury and eating disorders.
If a student has had prior problems, the student and family should have a plan for dealing with issues like depression or eating disorders while the student is at college. Often that might include therapy sessions with a counselor near the college. Often, students and families do not want to seek help because many feel there is a stigma to mental illness.
Megan O’Neill reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education article, Campus Psychological Counseling Goes Online for Students at U. of Florida which discussed the online counseling program Therapist Assisted Online (TAO):
Therapist Assisted Online, or TAO, began at Florida this past fall. Designed specifically for students battling anxiety—a primary mental-health issue on college campuses—it is the first research-supported program of its kind in the United States, Ms. Benton believes.
In the pilot program, 26 students treated under TAO showed more improvement, calculated using a system called Behavioral Health Measure-20, than 26 participants in the in-person group-therapy sessions at the counseling center. The students treated under TAO also made more progress than about 700 students receiving individual in-person therapy.
“The results blew me away, not to mention the fact that it stunned all of my counselors, who I think are still trying to come to terms with what happened,” Ms. Benton says.
The director is the first to point out the limitations of the pilot. Both the student patients and the counselors self-selected, indicating a certain level of motivation and comfort with new technology. The pool of participants was small. Other research studies show that online patients experience results equal to those of in-person patients.
Still, the model could spell major change for mental-health services in higher education, where the number of students in need of treatment and the severity of diagnoses has climbed steadily during the past decade, according to professionals in the field…
TAO consists of seven interactive treatment modules meant to be completed during a seven-week period. It includes assessments of current symptoms and level of function, as well as cognitive–behavorial and mindfulness exercises. Student patients participate in 10- to 15-¬minute video consultations with their counselors once a week, and receive daily encouraging text messages.
The online-treatment program falls between self-help and traditional therapy, Ms. Benton says. The relationship between the counselor and the patient remains paramount. The weekly video consultations and the content of the modules work in concert.
Counselors monitor progress, and layers of risk management are in place. Participating students must provide emergency contact information and authorize the counseling center to use it, if necessary.
Jurisdictional Issues
Much of the technical work is being done within the E-Learning, Technology, and Creative Services division of the university’s College of Education. Glenn E. Good, dean of the college and a licensed psychologist, estimates that the university has spent about $200,000 to develop TAO.
Officials are exploring the licensing potential of the program, he says, although the priority is to produce an effective, replicable treatment rather than a profitable business.
TAO and other types of online psychotherapy are inappropriate for seriously ill patients, counselors at the University of Florida and others say. Moreover, the regulation of mental-health professionals in the United States is done at the state level, creating geographic limitations even though the treatment is done online.
“There are interjurisdictional problems,” says John C. Norcross, a researcher and professor of psychology at the University of Scranton. “If you launch a website in Pennsylvania and the therapist you are talking to is in Florida and the patient is Louisiana, it is a regulatory and malpractice nightmare.”
Where the licensing and regulation of mental-health professionals is done at the national level, such as in Australia and Britain, online psychotherapy has been in use for years, Mr. Norcross says.
Nevertheless, TAO promises clear advantages for mental-health professionals in higher education and their patients, experts say. They cite time and cost savings, the flexible and discreet nature of delivery, and the potential scalability…. http://chronicle.com/article/Campus-Psychological/143963/

The University of Florida describes TAO:

What is TAO?
Tao is a seven-week, interactive, web-based program that provides assistance to help overcome anxiety.
TAO is based on well research and highly effective strategies for helping anxiety.
Each of the seven weeks, participants will watch videos, complete exercises, and meeting with a counselor via video conferencing for a 10-15 minute consultation.
Weekly exercises taking approximately 30-40 minutes to complete.

What are the experiences of UF students using TAO?
TAO Pilot OutcomesDuring the Fall 2013 Semester, we compared outcomes for individual face-to-face psychotherapy, group psychotherapy and Therapist Assisted Online for students with anxiety across seven sessions.
All participants completed the Behavioral Health Measure-20 (BHM-20) prior to each session.
On the BHM-20 higher scores indicate fewer symptoms and better functioning. The graph on the right shows change across time on the anxiety subscale of the BHM-20. On the BHM-20 a score of 2.6 indicates normal non-problematic functioning.

Who is eligible?
Currently enrolled students who want help with anxiety and worry.
Students who have access to computer with webcam.
Students who are not experiencing severe depression.
Students without a current substance abuse problem.
If taking medication, must have been on the same dose for at least one month prior to starting the treatment.
18 years old or older.
Currently living within 50 miles of Gainesville.
How do I sign up?
Call the Counseling and Wellness Center and ask to schedule a TAO triage appointment.
If you are already seeing a counselor, then tell your counselor you are interested.

We look forward to helping with your anxiety in TAO!
http://www.counseling.ufl.edu/cwc/tao

Parents must recognize the signs of distress and get help for their child. If you are a student in distress, get help because there are many different therapies to get you back on track.

Resources for Parents & Students

◦National Resources http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/go/help/find-national-resources

◦National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255) http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/24 hour hotline

◦Mental Health America screenings for depression and other mental health conditions http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/go/help/ Click on the Take a Screening link under Finding Help
◦mpowersheets http://www.mpoweryouth.org/411.htmmpower is a youth awareness campaign that helps fight stigma

◦The Virginia Tech Tragedy: Tips and Resources http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/go/about-us/pressroom/press-kits/virginia-tech

◦Active Minds http://www.activemindsoncampus.org/Peer to Peer student support and advocacy group on college campuses

◦NAMI on Campus http://www.nami.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Find_Support/NAMI_on_Campus1/NAMI_on_Campus.htm

Student-run organizations that provide support, education, and advocacy

◦Disability and Civil Rights Resources http://www.bazelon.org/issues/education/StudentsandMentalHealth.htm#2Explains rights under ADA and how to file a discrimination complaint

◦Education and Community Integration http://www.upennrrtc.org/issues/view.php?id=6Overview of importance of community integration for those with mental health conditions

◦Community Integration Tools http://www.upennrrtc.org/var/tool/file/26-CollegeFS.pdfThe College Experience: Tips for Reducing
Stress and Getting the Accommodations You Need

◦Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation http://www.bu.edu/cpr/reasaccom/index.html#topInformation on reasonable accommodations

◦Job Accommodation Network http://www.jan.wvu.edu/portals/ed.htmSection on accommodations in educational settings

◦Association on Higher Education and Disability http://www.ahead.org/

◦Office of Civil Rights, Department of Education http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/complaintprocess.htmlComplaint form and procedures

Trauma Resources

◦Understanding Mental Illness After the Virginia Tech Tragedy http://www.samhsa.gov/MentalHealth/understanding_Mentalllness.aspxTips for dealing with trauma as well as educational resources

◦Higher Education Resources on Violence http://www.higheredcenter.org/violence/

◦Preventing Violence and Promoting Safety in Higher Education Settings http://www.higheredcenter.org/pubs/violence.pdf

Evaluation Resources

◦Guide by Department of Education http://www.ed.gov/PDFDocs/handbook.pdfA guide to evaluating drug and alcohol prevention projects

◦Resources through the Higher Education Center http://www.higheredcenter.org/eval/links.html

Mental Health Screening Tools

◦Screening For Mental Health http://www.mentalhealthscreening.org/index.aspxA non-profit with college screening programs

◦Teenscreen http://www.teenscreen.org/Columbia University’s mental health screening program

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

Tags: Campus Psychological Counseling Goes Online for Students at U. of Florida, Chronicle of Higher Education, counseling, Depression, Mental Health, Mental Health Needs Growing At Colleges, Mental Illnes, mental illness, Student Mental Health, Suicide, TAO, Therapist Assisted Online, University of Florida

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories Dr Wilda

Yale University study: Left-handed people more likely to have psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia

3 Nov

Science Daily reported in the article, Lefties More Likely to Have Psychotic Disorders Such as Schizophrenia:

Being left-handed has been linked to many mental disorders, but Yale researcher Jadon Webb and his colleagues have found that among those with mental illnesses, people with psychotic disorders like schizophrenia are much more likely to be left-handed than those with mood disorders like depression or bipolar syndrome. 1 The new study is published in the October-December 2013 issue of the journal SAGE Open. About 10% of the U.S. population is left-handed. When comparing all patients with mental disorders, the research team found that 11% of those diagnosed with mood disorders such as depression and bipolar disorder are left-handed, which is similar to the rate in the general population. But according to Webb, a child and adolescent psychiatry fellow at the Yale Child Study Center with a particular interest in biomarkers of psychosis, “a striking of 40% of those with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder are left-handed….” Webb and his colleagues studied 107 individuals from a public outpatient psychiatric clinic seeking treatment in an urban, low-income community. The research team determined the frequency of left-handedness within the group of patients identified with different types of mental disorders. The study showed that white patients with psychotic illness were more likely to be left-handed than black patients. “Even after controlling for this, however, a large difference between psychotic and mood disorder patients remained,” said Webb. What sets this study apart from other handedness research is the simplicity of the questionnaire and analysis, said Webb. Patients who were attending their usual check-ups at the mental health facility were simply asked “What hand do you write with?” “This told us much of what we needed to know in a very simple, practical way,” said Webb. “Doing a simple analysis meant that there were no obstacles to participating and we had a very high participation rate of 97%. Patients dealing with serious symptoms of psychosis might have had a harder time participating in a more complicated set of questions or tests. By keeping the survey simple, we were able to get an accurate snapshot of a hard-to-study subgroup of mentally ill people — those who are often poverty-stricken with very poor family and community support.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131031125319.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29

Citation:

Journal Reference:
1. J. R. Webb, M. I. Schroeder, C. Chee, D. Dial, R. Hana, H. Jefee, J. Mays, P. Molitor. Left-Handedness Among a Community Sample of Psychiatric Outpatients Suffering From Mood and Psychotic Disorders. SAGE Open, 2013; 3 (4) DOI: 10.1177/2158244013503166

Here is the Yale University press release:

By Karen N. Peart
October 31, 2013
Being left-handed has been linked to many mental disorders, but Yale researcher Jadon Webb and his colleagues have found that among those with mental illnesses, people with psychotic disorders like schizophrenia are much more likely to be left-handed than those with mood disorders like depression or bipolar syndrome.
The new study is published in the October-December 2013 issue of the journal SAGE Open. About 10% of the U.S. population is left-handed. When comparing all patients with mental disorders, the research team found that 11% of those diagnosed with mood disorders such as depression and bipolar disorder are left-handed, which is similar to the rate in the general population. But according to Webb, a child and adolescent psychiatry fellow at the Yale Child Study Center with a particular interest in biomarkers of psychosis, “a striking of 40% of those with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder are left-handed.”
“In general, people with psychosis are those who have lost touch with reality in some way, through hallucinations, delusions, or false beliefs, and it is notable that this symptom constellation seems to correlate with being left-handed,” said Webb. “Finding biomarkers such as this can hopefully enable us to identify and differentiate mental disorders earlier, and perhaps one day tailor treatment in more effective ways.” Webb and his colleagues studied 107 individuals from a public outpatient psychiatric clinic seeking treatment in an urban, low-income community. The research team determined the frequency of left-handedness within the group of patients identified with different types of mental disorders.
The study showed that white patients with psychotic illness were more likely to be left-handed than black patients. “Even after controlling for this, however, a large difference between psychotic and mood disorder patients remained,” said Webb. What sets this study apart from other handedness research is the simplicity of the questionnaire and analysis, said Webb. Patients who were attending their usual check-ups at the mental health facility were simply asked “What hand do you write with?” “This told us much of what we needed to know in a very simple, practical way,” said Webb. “Doing a simple analysis meant that there were no obstacles to participating and we had a very high participation rate of 97%.
Patients dealing with serious symptoms of psychosis might have had a harder time participating in a more complicated set of questions or tests. By keeping the survey simple, we were able to get an accurate snapshot of a hard-to-study subgroup of mentally ill people — those who are often poverty-stricken with very poor family and community support.”
Other authors on the study include Mary I. Schroeder, Christopher Chee, Deanna Dial, Rebecca Hana, Hussam Jefee, Jacob Mays, and Patrick Molitor. Citation: Sage Open vol. 3 no. 4 2158244013503166 (October-December 2013)

For interesting facts about left-handed people http://facts.randomhistory.com/facts-about-left-handedness.html

A 2011 Wall Street Journal article, The Health Risks of Being Left-Handed, highlighted some of the potential challenges faced by lefties:

On average there is no significant difference in IQ between righties and lefties, studies show, belying popular perceptions. There is some evidence that lefties are better at divergent thinking, or starting from existing knowledge to develop new concepts, which is considered an element of creativity. And left-handed people have salaries that on average are about 10% lower than righties, according to recent research performed at Harvard University that analyzed large income data bases, although findings of some earlier studies were mixed.
Left-handedness appears to be associated with a greater risk for a number of psychiatric and developmental disorders. While lefties make up about 10% of the overall population, about 20% of people with schizophrenia are lefties, for example. Links between left-handedness and dyslexia, ADHD and some mood disorders have also been reported in research studies. The reasons for this aren’t clear. Scientists speculate it could be related to a concept known as brain lateralization.
The brain has two halves. Each performs primarily separate, specialized functions, such as language processing, which mainly takes place in the left hemisphere. There is lots of communication between the hemispheres. Typically in right-handers, the brain’s left side is dominant. But this tendency doesn’t hold up with lefties, as scientists previously believed. Some 70% of lefties rely on the left hemisphere for their language centers, a key brain function, says Metten Somers, a psychiatrist and researcher who studies brain lateralization at Utrecht University Medical Center in the Netherlands. This doesn’t appear to present problems, scientists say. The other 30% of lefties appear to exhibit either a right-dominant or distributed pattern, Dr. Somers says. They may be more prone to impaired learning or functioning, and at greater risk for brain disorders, he says. Hemisphere dominance is typical and more efficient. Symmetry, in which neither side is dominant, is believed linked to disorders, researchers say. People with schizophrenia, for instance, exhibit more symmetrical activation of their brain hemispheres than those without the disorder, studies show.
In a 2008 study, Alina Rodriguez, a psychology professor at Mid Sweden University in Östersund who studies handedness, brain development and ADHD, found that left- or mixed-handedness in children was linked to a greater risk of difficulty with language as well as ADHD symptoms. In another study published last year in Pediatrics, involving nearly 8,000 Finnish children, Dr. Rodriguez found that mixed-handedness rather than left-handedness was linked to ADHD symptoms. And knowing that a child was mixed-handed and had ADHD symptoms at age 8 helped predict much more accurately than just knowing they had symptoms at that age whether the child would continue to have symptoms at age 16. (What happens when people are forced to switch from writing with their dominant hand to the other isn’t well known, experts say.) Research that suggests that there is a link between favoring the left hand and an increased risk of bipolar disorder and ADHD, among other conditions. Emily Nelson has details on Lunch Break.
One reason that not more is known about lefties is that many studies of how the brain works prohibit left-handers from participating because their brain wiring is known to be different, says Robin Nusslock, a psychology professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., who uses neuroimaging to study mood disorders.
Lefties have an advantage in sports such as tennis, fencing and baseball, when up against a righthanded competitor, but not in noninteractive sports such as gymnastics. A potential pathway between prenatal stress and brain wiring could be cortisol, the body’s main stress hormone, which can interfere with brain development, says Carsten Obel, a professor at the public-health department at Aarhus University in Denmark who has conducted research on the prenatal environment and risk of disease. Cortisol is able to pass over the placenta barrier to influence the baby.
Several studies show that stressful life events, such as the death of a loved one or job loss, during pregnancy increase the risk of having non-right-handed children. In one study of 834 Danish mothers and their 3-year-old children, Dr. Obel and his colleagues found that mothers who reported multiple stressful events during their third trimester of pregnancy and experienced distress were more than three times as likely to have a mixed-handed child, 17% compared with 5%, according to the 2003 paper published in Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology. Another large study followed 1,700 Swedish mothers and children until the kids were 5 years old. It found that mothers with depressive symptoms or who underwent stressful life events while pregnant were more likely to have left- or mixed-handed children. The work was published by Dr. Rodriguez and her colleagues in 2008 in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. Experts suggest that left- and mixed-handedness could be used as a risk factor for possible psychiatric or developmental conditions, along with behavioral difficulties, such as having a hard time in school. The presence of such risk factors could prompt early evaluation for those conditions, they say. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970204083204577080562692452538

The best defense for parents is a good awareness of what is going on with their child. As a parent you need to know what is going on in your child’s world

GAO report: Children’s mental health services are lacking https://drwilda.com/2013/01/12/gao-report-childrens-mental-health-services-are-lacking/

Schools have to deal with depressed and troubled children: https://drwilda.com/2011/11/15/schools-have-to-deal-with-depressed-and-troubled-children/

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

Tags: . Left-Handedness Among a Community Sample of Psychiatric Outpatients Suffering From Mood and Psychotic Disorders., Children's Mental Health, current-events, Depression, Depression in Children, Depression In School Age Children and Adolescents, health, Kids Health, Lefties More Likely to Have Psychotic Disorders Such as Schizophrenia:, medicine, mental disorders, Mental Health, Mental Health Care For Kids Severely Lacking Says GAO, mental illnesses, mood disorders, research, science, Understanding Depression, Yale university

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories Dr Wilda

← Older Entries

Newer Entries →

Search

drwilda

European College of Neuropsychopharmacology study: How to prevent suicide?

Harvard study: High doses of antidepressants appear to increase risk of self-harm in children and young adults

University of California, San Francisco study identifies most common reasons for children’s mental health hospitalizations

University of Florida tries the online counseling program Therapist Assisted Online (TAO)

Yale University study: Left-handed people more likely to have psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia

Recent Posts

Archives

Categories

Follow Blog via Email

Twitter Updates

Meta

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Translate