Mental Health Service Use Before First Diagnosis of a Psychotic Disorder.

Importance: Characterizing mental health service use trajectories preceding diagnosis of a psychotic disorder may help identify individuals at highest risk and in which settings they are at highest risk.

Objective: To examine mental health service use and diagnostic trajectories before first diagnosis of psychotic disorder and identify utilization and diagnostic patterns.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This population-based, retrospective cohort study used linked provincial health administrative data.

Patterns of service utilization among youth with substance use service need: a cohort study.

Background: Integrated youth services (IYS) are vital to addressing the needs of youth who use substances. Evidence on the characteristics of youths accessing these services and the types of services accessed have been limited. The objectives were to identify sociodemographic, self-reported health and mental health, patterns of service utilization (service type and frequency of visits) among youths with different levels of substance use service needs (low, moderate, and high), and to estimate the extent to which substance use service needs, self-reported health and mental health influenced the frequency of visits and types of service utilized.

Identifying early intervention opportunities for illicit stimulant use: A cross-sectional study of factors associated with illicit stimulant use among young people accessing integrated youth services in British Columbia, Canada.

Introduction: Illicit stimulant (cocaine and/or amphetamine) use among young people aged 12-24 is a public health priority given that substance use initiation tends to peak in this developmental period and significant associated immediate and long-term harms are associated with its use. Young people using stimulants must be engaged in services as early as possible to reduce these harms. To inform early intervention opportunities, this study aimed to identify the risk/protective factors associated with illicit stimulant use among young people.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on alcohol or drug use symptoms and service need among youth: a cross-sectional sample from British Columbia, Canada.

Background: Concerns about youth alcohol and drug use have risen since the declaration of the global COVID-19 pandemic due to the pandemic's impact on known risk and protective factors for substance use. However, the pandemic's immediate and long-term impact on youths' substance use patterns has been less clear. Thus, this study sought to determine how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted alcohol or drug use and its risk and protective factors among youth accessing integrated youth services.

Emergency department visits for self-harm in adolescents after release of the Netflix series '13 Reasons Why'.

Objective: To determine whether the release of the first season of the Netflix series '13 Reasons Why' was associated with changes in emergency department presentations for self-harm.

Methods: Healthcare utilization databases were used to identify emergency department and outpatient presentations according to age and sex for residents of Ontario, Canada. Data from 2007 to 2018 were used in autoregressive integrated moving average models for time series forecasting with a pre-specified hypothesis that rates of emergency department presentations for self-harm would increase in the 3-month period following the release of 13 Reasons Why (1 April 2017 to 30 June 2017).

Mortality After the First Diagnosis of Schizophrenia-Spectrum Disorders: A Population-based Retrospective Cohort Study.

There is emerging evidence of high mortality rates after the first diagnosis of psychotic disorder. The objective of this study was to estimate the standardized mortality ratio (SMR) in a population-based cohort of individuals with a first diagnosis of schizophrenia-spectrum psychotic disorder (SSD). The cohort included a population-based sample of individuals with a first diagnosis of SSD based on the first diagnosis occurring during hospitalization or in an outpatient setting between 2007 and 2010 in Ontario, Canada.

Public perceptions of Internet-based health scams, and factors that promote engagement with them.

The prevalence of health scams in Canada is increasing, facilitated by the rise of the Internet as a mass communication medium. However, little is known about the nature of this phenomena. Building on previous work exploring the nature of Internet health scams (IHS), this project sought to better understand the reasons why people engaged with IHS, and if contemporary psychosocial theory can help explain IHS engagement.

Internet health scams-Developing a taxonomy and risk-of-deception assessment tool.

The prevalence of health scams in Canada is increasing, facilitated by the rise of the Internet. However, little is known about the nature of this phenomena. This study sought to methodically identify and categorise Internet-based Health Scams (IHS) currently active in Canada, creating an initial taxonomy based on systematic Internet searches.