The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention has posted recommendations for news organizations reporting on suicide. The foundation says that while news coverage informs the public and can help them get the assistance they need, there is also the possibility of spreading misinformation and inadvertently contributing to suicide contagion. The guidelines are available as a PDF which can be printed and posted via the web page: http://www.afsp.org/understanding-suicide/for-the-media/reporting-on-suicide.

The Maryland Foundation for Psychiatry supports these guidelines and urges news agencies to us them in our most recent radio public service announcement:

Suicide Reporting in Media, MP3, 346KB

Medscape (1/24, Brooks) reports that research published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology suggests that “heavy drinking may worsen symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and PTSD symptoms may contribute to heavy drinking in college students.” Investigators came to these conclusions after looking at “relationships between PTSD and heavy drinking (assessed by Web survey) in 486 students as they transitioned into college and at 11 additional time points during the following 3 years.”

In a letter to the editor of the Washington Post (1/24), Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, president of the American Psychiatric Association, writes that, contrary to the implications of a recent column, violence is not “an inevitable consequence of mental illness.” Dr. Lieberman points out that just “4 percent of violent crimes in the United States are related to mental illness.” Dr. Lieberman argues that “the violent acts committed by the mentally ill are the tip of the iceberg of inadequate mental health services and facilities.”

Related Links:

— “Violence is not a consequence of mental illness, The Washington Post, January 23, 2014.

Medwire (1/22, McDermid) reports that research published in BMJ suggests that “the death of a close family member during childhood is associated with an increased risk for future psychosis.” The study, “based on data for 946,994 Swedish people,” indicated that “the effect was stronger the younger the child was at the time of the death.” Investigators found, “after accounting for confounders,” that “the risk for psychosis was increased by 84% for people who lost a nuclear family member between birth and the age of 2.9 years, and by 47% and 32% for those who experienced a death at the ages of 3.0 to 6.9 years and 7.0 to 12.9 years, respectively.”

Related Links:

— “Childhood bereavement contributes to future psychosis risk, “Eleanor McDermid, Medwire, January 22, 2014.

On its website, MSNBC (1/22, Khimm) examines how “the Obamacare wars” between Republicans and Democrats “hurt” individuals with mental illnesses. When states like Georgia, profiled in the piece, refuse to expand Medicaid under the law, safety net hospitals are “caught in the middle.” They don’t get new Medicaid funding, “yet they’ll see a cumulative $18 billion reduction in federal payments by 2020.” Moreover, the article explains, “as the fiscal pressures mount, mental health services for low-income residents are especially vulnerable to cutbacks.”

Related Links:

— “How the Obamacare wars hurt the mentally ill, “Suzy Khimm, MSNBC, January 24, 2014.

The AP (1/18) reported that the FDA “on Friday cleared a first-of-a-kind blood test that can help diagnose mental disabilities in babies by analyzing their genetic code.” It approved the CytoScan Dx Assay from Affymetrix that “is designed to help doctors diagnose children’s disabilities earlier” for better care, but “it is not intended for prenatal screening or for predicting other genetically acquired diseases and conditions.” The test “detects variations in patients’ chromosomes that are linked to Down syndrome, DiGeorge syndrome and other developmental disorders” and is described as “faster” and “more comprehensive” than existing tests.

The New York Times (1/20, Span) reports in its “New Old Age” blog on the results of a study by two researchers from Boston College that found “those who report having endured childhood maltreatment are particularly vulnerable to depression if they later care for their parents.” The study divided 1,001 participants into three groups: never abused, abused as children and caring for their non-abusive parent, and abused as children and caring for the abusive parent. The last group had significantly more deleterious effects.

Related Links:

— “A Risk in Caring for Abusive Parents, “Paula Span, The New York Times, January 20, 2014.

The Los Angeles Times (1/21, Healy) reports that research published in Annals of Internal Medicine suggests that individuals “who have ready access to a firearm are almost twice as likely to be killed and three times likelier to commit suicide than those without a gun available in the home or from a neighbor or friend.” Investigators analyzed data from 14 observational studies.

On its website, NBC News (1/21, Fox) reports that the data indicated that “the odds of suicide went up by anywhere from 1.5 times to 10-fold if people had access to guns.” Meanwhile, “studies looking at homicide found that if people had access to guns, they were two to three times more likely to be killed themselves.”

Related Links:

— “Study takes new look at gun access and risk of homicide, suicide, “Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times, January 20, 2014.

The Los Angeles Times (1/16, Zarembo) “Science Now” blog reports that according to astudy published online Jan. 15 in JAMA Psychiatry, “people who suffer traumatic brain injuries [TBI] face an elevated risk of death from suicide or accidents for years to come.” The study, which is “based on four decades of data on hundreds of thousand of patients in Sweden,” found that individuals “who survived the immediate aftermath of moderate and severe traumatic brain injuries were three times more likely than people without such injuries to die prematurely, defined by the researchers as before age 56.”

Related Links:

— “Survivors of traumatic brain injuries more likely to die young, “Alan Zarembo, Los Angeles Times, January 15, 2014.

One national news broadcast, several major newspapers, one wire source, and numerous consumer online medical sources report a study suggesting that mental decline is associated with heavy drinking in middle-aged men.

ABC World News (1/15, story 8, 1:40, Sawyer) reported that a study published online Jan. 15 in the journal Neurology “shows that beer and wine speeds up memory loss, but it seems only if you drink a certain amount.”

The Los Angeles Times (1/15, Healy) reports, “Middle-aged men who consume an average of more than 2½ alcoholic drinks per day accelerate the rate at which their memories decline by almost six years over a 10-year span,” the study found. What’s more, “while a higher consumption of spirits such as vodka, gin, whiskey or scotch was linked to the fastest rates of mental decline in men, researchers saw little difference between the cognitive loss seen in heavy beer drinkers (who drank more than 2½ 12-ounce beers per day) and that seen in men who quaffed a half-bottle of wine or more per day.”

Related Links:

— “Heavy drinking in middle age speeds cognitive decline, study finds, “Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times, January 15, 2014.