Addressing the Increasing Mental Health Distress and Mental Illness Among Young Adults in the United States.

Recent surveys show rising numbers of young people who report anxiety and depression. Although much attention has focused on mental health of adolescent youth, less attention has been paid to young people as they transition into adulthood. Multiple factors may have contributed to this steady increase: greater exposure to social media, information, and distressing news via personal electronic devices; increased concerns regarding social determinants of health and climate change; and changing social norms due to increased mental health literacy and reduced stigma.

Structural Racism and Psychiatric Practice: A Call for Sustained Change.

Structural racism has received renewed focus over the past year, fueled by the convergence of major political and social events. Psychiatry as a field has been forced to confront a legacy of systemic inequities. Here, we use examples from our clinical and supervisory work to highlight the urgent need to integrate techniques addressing racial identity and racism into psychiatric practice and teaching.

Psychiatry in the Time of COVID: Credibility, Uncertainty, and Self-Reflection.

Public trust in the credibility of medicine and physicians has been severely tested amid the COVID-19 pandemic and growing sociopolitical fissures in the United States. Physicians are being asked to be ambassadors to the public of scientific information. Psychiatrists have an opportunity to help the public understand and accept a "new normal" during a time of such uncertainty.

Telehealth and the Community SMI Population: Reflections on the Disrupter Experience of COVID-19.

The novel coronavirus pandemic and the resulting expanded use of telemedicine have temporarily transformed community-based care for individuals with serious mental illness (SMI), challenging traditional treatment paradigms. We review the rapid regulatory and practice shifts that facilitated broad use of telemedicine, the literature on the use of telehealth and telemedicine for individuals with SMI supporting the feasibility/acceptability of mobile interventions, and the more limited evidence-based telemedicine practices for this population. We provide anecdotal reflections on the opportunities and challenges for telemedicine drawn from our daily experiences providing services and overseeing systems for this population during the pandemic.

The Opioid Epidemic and Psychiatry: The Time for Action Is Now.

The number of people with opioid use disorder and the number of overdose deaths in the United States have increased dramatically over the past 20 years. U.S.

How the DSM Is Used in Clinical Practice.

Despite widespread use, how clinicians use the DSM in psychiatric practice is not well understood. Recognizing public and professional attitudes toward the DSM are integral to future DSM development, to assess a commonly held assumption such as that the DSM is used primarily for coding, and to assess its clinical utility. A convenience sample of Psychiatric Times readers was surveyed to assess the DSM's use in clinical practice.

Adaptation in Delivering Integrated Care: The Tension Between Care and Evidence-Based Practice.

Clinical practice is assumed to be informed and supported by evidence-based clinical research. Nonetheless, clinical practice often deviates from the research evidence base, sometimes leading and sometimes lagging. Two examples from integrated care in mental health care (care for serious mental illness and collaborative mental health care in primary care settings) illustrate the natural space and therefore tension between evidence and implementation that needs to be better understood.

Rational protection of subjects in research and quality improvement activities.

This Open Forum illuminates shortcomings with the basis for determining degree of oversight of health services research and quality improvement activities. Using a federally regulated definition of research rather than a direct appraisal of risk to patients can misallocate effort from activities with higher risk for patients to those with lower risk. The case of the Johns Hopkins multicenter study of central line safety checklists in intensive care units is cited.

Implementing standardized assessments in clinical care: now's the time.

In this Open Forum the Committee on Psychopathology within the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (GAP) strongly encourages clinicians and health systems to implement standardized assessments of patients' outcomes for mental disorders, particularly disorders such as depression. The GAP committee describes how calls for the regular use of standardized scales in clinical settings naturally follow from the development and dissemination of treatment guidelines. It discusses the challenges involved in implementing routine outcome measures in clinical settings and explains why the advantages of measurement-based care make addressing these challenges worthwhile.

Psychiatrists and primary caring: what are our boundaries of responsibility?

This column provides a framework for considering the extent of psychiatrists' responsibility for patients' medical conditions. Psychiatrists have the greatest responsibility for medical conditions that occur as a result of their own actions. Next on the continuum of responsibility is psychiatrists' obligation to remain alert for medical conditions that can cause, trigger, or exacerbate psychiatric conditions or interfere with treatment.

Topiramate as a therapy for chronic posttraumatic stress disorder.

Since the original publication of open-label suggestions of efficacy of adjunctive and monotherapy topiramate as a novel therapy for chronic posttraumatic stress disorder, three small, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials conducted as pilot trials have been made public. The results of these studies, including efficacy, termination rates, and adverse effects resulting in termination are reviewed critically, including methodological limitations to interpretation of the findings. One study finds separation from placebo over 12 weeks for a reduction in total CAPS scores with a large effect size (d=1.

Prospective open-label study of add-on and monotherapy topiramate in civilians with chronic nonhallucinatory posttraumatic stress disorder.

Background: In order to confirm therapeutic effects of topiramate on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) observed in a prior study, a new prospective, open-label study was conducted to examine acute responses in chronic, nonhallucinatory PTSD.

Methods: Thirty-three consecutive newly recruited civilian adult outpatients (mean age 46 years, 85% female) with DSM-IV-diagnosed chronic PTSD, excluding those with concurrent auditory or visual hallucinations, received topiramate either as monotherapy (n = 5) or augmentation (n = 28). The primary measure was a change in the PTSD Checklist-Civilian Version (PCL-C) score from baseline to 4 weeks, with response defined as a >/= 30% reduction of PTSD symptoms.

New drug development for post-traumatic stress disorder.

US FDA approval of two serotonin-selective reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) agents for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has created new opportunities for drug development. This follows many years of exploring the potential utility of several classes of psychotropic agents for this very common, yet under-recognized and under-treated disorder. This review examines some of the basic neurobiological abnormalities observed in PTSD and summarizes open and controlled drug trials for major classes of medications, including SSRIs, other antidepressants, atypical neuroleptics, noradrenergic modulators and anticonvulsants, while critically evaluating the extent of effectiveness of these agents and reviewing unmet gaps in therapeutic need.

Open-label topiramate as primary or adjunctive therapy in chronic civilian posttraumatic stress disorder: a preliminary report.

Background: The hypothesis that exposure to traumatic events may sensitize or kindle limbic nuclei has led to efforts to treat posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with anticonvulsants. Based on the kindling hypothesis of PTSD, this open-label study assesses clinical response to topiramate as a potential treatment for DSM-IV PTSD.

Method: A naturalistic data review was conducted of medical records of all adult outpatients (9 men.

Treatment of the nonpsychotic chronic patient: a problem of interactive fit.

Nonpsychotic chronic adult patients are troublesome, not only because of their psychosocial dysfunction, cognitive and affective impairments, and behavioral problems, but also because they fail the expectations and values of health care providers. The concept of interactive fit is proposed to facilitate the therapeutic process between patient and provider. Stages of treatment are described, together with guidelines for clinicians.