This year, more than 1311 physicians of all specialties responded to the survey . . . 287 of the respondents are psychiatrists. The charts you see show how those 287 responded to just a few of the survey questions. Read More
Psychiatric Times presents coverage of the US Psychiatric and Mental Health Congress, covering the latest research on the assessment and treatment of psychiatric disorders. PsychCongress 2012 is on November 8-11 in San Diego, California. Read More
In this video, Senior Advisor to the NIMH Director and Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine explains how some of the latest developments in neuroscience can be used in everyday practice to treat bipolar and other mental disorders. Read More
We've put many of the clinical scales online, hoping healthcare professionals—whether in specialty practices, primary-care settings, or emergency services—will find this format convenient. … Read More
The federal government must realize that decades of allowing mental health care to go begging leaves a very weak chance of detecting or treating those who need help.
After each violent tragedy, politicians mourn and harrumph, but they wind up buckling under pressure from the NRA, fiscal constraints, and the prison and gun lobbies. Repeated dramatic events can shake the complacency and cowardice of a stalemated Congress and state legislatures.
It is yet unclear whether the overwhelming shock of Newtown will galvanize action not only to prevent future mass murderers, but also to finally reduce the public health and mental health risks of more chronic, common, and routine gun violence in America.
If I closed my eyes, it would have been easy to imagine that I was visiting a peaceful city park. The sounds of birdsong and children’s laughter rang... More »
The foreword to the Textbook of Violence Assessment and Management promptly reminds readers that the mental health system has been invested in the... More »
Traumatic experiences are common in childhood and adolescence and can have significant psychological effects on the child’s emotional well-being and... More »
Recent decades have seen an outpouring of publications about psychological trauma. With its formal diagnostic category of posttraumatic stress... More »
Racial/ethnic and sexual orientation minorities and women historically have been relegated to social, legal, and economic disadvantage in the United... More »
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the major cause of death and disability among young adults. In spite of preventive measures, the incidence of a TBI... More »
Traumatology has become an increasingly multidisciplinary field. Originally the province of psychiatry and clinical psychology, the field has now been... More »
Nearly one sixth of the world's population has experienced mass violence, be it abducted Ugandan children who are forced to commit atrocities against... More »
The 1994 death of Nicole Brown Simpson and the subsequent highly publicized murder trial of her ex-husband, O.J. Simpson, brought increasing national... More »
Emotional learning is extremely important for the survival of an individual. However, once acquired, emotional associations are not always expressed. The regulation of emotional responses under different environmental conditions is essential for mental health. Indeed, pathologic feelings of fear and anxiety are defining features of many serious psychiatric illness, including post-traumaticstressdisorder (PTSD) and specific phobias. The simplest form of regulation of emotional responses is extinction, in which the conditioned response to a stimulus decreases when reinforcement (stimulus) is omitted. In addition to modulating basal anxiety states, recent studies suggest an important role for the endocannabinoid (eCB) and glucocorticoid systems in the modulation of emotional states and extinction of aversive memories in animals. The purpose of this review is to briefly outline the animal models of fear extinction and to describe how these have been used to examine the potential of
Pathophysiological regulation of the stress response involves a number of complex interactions at the organismal, cellular and molecular levels. A salient feature of the stress response is the activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Molecular studies of this phenomenon have found a number of genes which are differentially expressed in stressed individuals and control subjects. The transcription factor NF-kappaB controls many of these genes, which is evidence of the key role it plays in the cellular stress response. Stress upregulates a number of genes such as the transcription factor genes that control cell growth, chromatin structure, cell cycle activation and enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of nucleic acids and proteins. The genes that are down-regulated in stress are cell cycle inhibitors, apoptosis related genes, antiproliferative cytokines and Apo J, the NF-kappaB inhibitor. Post-traumaticstressdisorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder which develops as a
Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) is a powerful psychotherapy with well-researched benefits for adults and children who are experiencing post-traumaticstress and post-traumaticstressdisorder. There is a wealth of research and practice-based evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of EMDR in many differing clinical presentations but the true potential of this extraordinarily beneficial therapeutic approach has not been fully embraced by the mental health nursing profession.
Reserve and National Guard forces have been mobilized to an unprecedented degree in recent overseas conflicts. There is concern that rates of psychological problems may continue to rise for many years after deployment. The authors conducted a cohort study of 552 United Kingdom Reservists who deployed to Iraq in 2003 and 391 nondeployed Reservists. Measures of mental health and social functioning were collected a mean of 16 months and 4.8 years after return from possible deployment. At the first follow-up, deployment was associated with increased common mental disorder, post-traumaticstressdisorder (PTSD), and poor general health. By the second follow-up, those who had deployed were no longer at increased risk for common mental disorder or poor general health and had good levels of social functioning. However, those who deployed continued to have over twice the odds of PTSD (odds ratio = 2.42, 95% confidence interval: 1.04, 5.62) and were more likely to report actual or serious
Information processing accounts of post-traumaticstressdisorder (PTSD) state that intrusive memories emerge due to a lack of integration between perceptual and contextual trauma representations in autobiographical memory. This hypothesis was tested experimentally using an analogue trauma paradigm in which participants viewed an aversive film designed to elicit involuntary recollections.|Participants viewed scenes from the film either paired with contextual information or with the contextual information omitted. After viewing the film participants were asked to record for one week any involuntary intrusions for the film using a provided intrusions diary.|The results revealed a significant increase in analogue intrusions for the film when viewed with contextual information in comparison to when the film was viewed with the contextual information omitted. In contrast there was no effect of contextual information on valence ratings or voluntary memory for the film, or on the reported
As a profession, we tend to neglect to reflect on the impact our environments of care may have on patients' experiences of illness. In particular, our emergency departments and inpatient wards tend to be chaotic maelstroms of human activity with few boundaries. To the unacculturated, these environments can be extremely frightening. Couple that with the terror of severe, life-threatening illness, and one can only imagine how distressing that might be. In this issue of the jou
Our recent meta-analysis of 24 studies (N=2383 patients) found that 12% of patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) (including patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction [STEMI], non-STEMI, and unstable angina [UA]) develop posttraumatic stressdisorder (PTSD) symptoms owing to their ACS, and that these PTSD symptoms 1 month post-ACS are associated with a doubling of risk for ACS recurrence or mortality in the subsequent 1 to 3 years. Although we rev
AbstractObjective To evaluate the effect of initial low energy permissive underfeeding (trophic feeding) versus full energy enteral feeding (full feeding) on physical function and secondary outcomes in patients with acute lung injury.Design Prospective longitudinal follow-up evaluation of the NHLBI ARDS Clinical Trials Networks EDEN trialSetting 41hospitals in the United States.Participants 525 patients with acute lung injury.Interventions Randomised assignment to trophic or full feeding fo
Intimate partner violence in pregnant women is associated with preterm birth, low birthweight, and decreased gestational age (Individuals experiencing IPV often develop chronic mental health conditions, such as depression, posttraumatic stress
Violent offending by UK military personnel deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan: a data linkage cohort study. By - Dr Deirdre MacManus MRCPsych, Prof Kimberlie Dean PhD, Margaret Jones BA, Roberto J Ro...
Five Steps to Improving Patient Access Judy Capko, May 21, 2013 Patient access is getting increased attention through reform initiatives. Here are five steps you can take to make sure patients get appropriate access to care in your office.
Growing HIPAA Threat – Ignore Windows XP at Your Own Peril Marion K. Jenkins, May 21, 2013 Chances are good that you have some major ticking software time bombs lurking in your medical practice's computer environment, namely Windows XP and Server 2003.
Three Areas to Reduce Costs at Your Medical Practice Greg Mertz, May 19, 2013 By taking a hard look at reducing costs for staffing, overhead, and technology at your medical practice, you may see increased physician compensation.
Dos and Don’ts for Starting a Physician Blog Michael Woo-Ming, MD, May 18, 2013 Starting a physician blog can provide your medical practice with marketing benefits, but it's important to do it right.
The federal government must realize that decades of allowing mental health care to go begging leaves a very weak chance of detecting or treating those who need help.
After each violent tragedy, politicians mourn and harrumph, but they wind up buckling under pressure from the NRA, fiscal constraints, and the prison and gun lobbies. Repeated dramatic events can shake the complacency and cowardice of a stalemated Congress and state legislatures.
It is yet unclear whether the overwhelming shock of Newtown will galvanize action not only to prevent future mass murderers, but also to finally reduce the public health and mental health risks of more chronic, common, and routine gun violence in America.
