Longitudinal invariance of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 among patients receiving pharmacotherapy for major depressive disorder: A secondary analysis of clinical trial data.

Comparing self-reported symptom scores across time requires longitudinal measurement invariance (LMI), a psychometric property that means the measure is functioning identically across all time points. Despite its prominence as a measure of depression symptom severity in both research and health care, LMI has yet to be firmly established for the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 depression module (PHQ-9), particularly over the course of antidepressant pharmacotherapy. Accordingly, the objective of this study was to assess for LMI of the PHQ-9 during pharmacotherapy for major depressive disorder.

Longitudinal Influence of Prescribed Antidepressants on Fecal and Oral Microbiomes Among Veterans With Major Depressive Disorder.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the influence of a new course of antidepressant monotherapy on gut and oral microbiomes and the relationship to depressive symptoms.

Methods: Longitudinal microbiome samples obtained from 10 U.S.

Extreme Risk Protection Orders: Legislative Intent and Clinician Guidance.

In this second column of a 2-part series exploring extreme risk protections orders, we utilize recent events in Colorado, including legislative efforts to expand the list of eligible petitioners to include clinicians, as an opportunity to explore questions and challenges faced by mental health and medical professionals serving in this capacity. Clinicians are in need of more clear guidance, given an emerging role that comes without clear evidence or practice standards to inform individualized clinical decision-making, and which potentially pits public safety interests against patient care needs, especially those pertaining to therapeutic relationships. In the interim, clinicians will best serve their patients by continuing to practice in a fashion that is analogous to decision-making around other interventions with serious implications for patient autonomy such as involuntary hospitalization.

"Feel the need to prepare for Armageddon even though I do not believe it will happen": Women Veterans' Firearm Beliefs and Behaviors during the COVID-19 Pandemic, Associations with Military Sexual Assault and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms.

Aims: Firearm purchasing increased within the U.S. during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.

Cars, Guns, Aging, and "Giving Up the Keys".

Background And Objectives: Age-associated changes can impair abilities for safe driving and the use of firearms. We sought to examine multiple perspectives on reducing access to firearms, including similarities and differences compared to reducing driving.

Research Design And Methods: Online focus groups and 1-on-1 interviews were conducted (November 2020 to May 2021) in the United States with: older adults who drove and owned firearms; family members of older adult firearm owners/drivers; professionals in aging-related agencies; and firearm retailers/instructors.

Firearm Injury Prevention and Extreme Risk Protection Orders.

Extreme risk protection orders (ERPOs) represent a potential mechanism to facilitate firearm-related lethal means safety. ERPOs are a legal mechanism that enables law enforcement to temporarily remove firearms from, and prevent firearm purchase by, an individual who presents a significant danger to self or others, as determined by a court of law. While few jurisdictions currently allow mental health professionals to initiate ERPO petitions, it nonetheless seems important that clinicians be familiar with ERPOs, as clinicians may still serve an important role in disseminating information and facilitating judicious petitions.

Perspectives on clinician-delivered firearm safety counseling during routine care: Results of a national survey.

Only 7.5% of United States (U.S.