Child Maltreatment and Medical Traumatic Stress-A Double-Edged Sword.

Background/objectives: Medical procedures can be a traumatic event for both children and their parents. Children who have experienced maltreatment or early traumatic experiences are at a higher risk for various emotional, behavioral, and health issues, including declining mental health. This may include experiencing heightened distress following medical procedures.

Blueprint for destigmatizing depression and increasing openness to treatment among adolescents using brief social contact-based videos: a qualitative study.

Background: Depression is a major public health concern for adolescents, who exhibit low rates of connection to care despite significant needs. Although barriers to help-seeking such as stigma are well documented, interventions to address stigma and to increase help-seeking behavior are insufficient. Dissemination of short videos in social media offer a promising approach, but designing effective stimuli requires better insight into adolescents' perspectives of their own experiences, barriers, and possible interventions.

Venlafaxine treatment is associated with improved mood, but not decreased cocaine self-administration, in depressed people who use cocaine.

Individuals seeking treatment for their cocaine use often report depressive systems and nearly half meet criteria for major depressive disorder (MDD). This descriptive study aimed to assess the effects of the antidepressant venlafaxine alone and in combination with gabapentin on depressive symptoms, subjective effects of cocaine, and cocaine self-administration in depressed and non-depressed people who use cocaine. The effects of medication condition on mood and on the effects of smoked cocaine were compared between a group of clinically depressed people who use cocaine (n = 5) and a control group of non-depressed people who use cocaine (n = 5) using laboratory-based measures.

Brief video intervention to increase treatment-seeking among individuals living in a conflict zone: A randomized controlled trial.

Background: On October 7, 2023, a large-scale attack in Southern Israel and the ensuing war led to widespread casualties and the displacement of hundreds of thousands in Southern and Northern Israel. The conflict has exacerbated mental health issues. This randomized controlled trial assessed a brief social-contact-based video intervention on a large sample of individuals living in conflict zones, aiming to examine its effects on increasing treatment-seeking intentions.

Fidelity to Common Elements of Coordinated Specialty Care: Outcomes of Clients With First-Episode Psychosis.

Objective: The present study examined whether clients enrolled in coordinated specialty care (CSC) programs for first-episode psychosis (FEP) across 22 states and territories showed improved clinical and functional outcomes and assessed whether program- or client-level predictors were associated with client outcomes. The study included CSC programs that subscribe to a variety of models, including Early Assessment and Support Alliance, OnTrack, and NAVIGATE.

Methods: Deidentified demographic and outcome data were collected from clients (N=770) receiving CSC services in 36 programs at the time of program entry and every 6 months for up to 18 months.

Breaking barriers: why including boys and men is key to HPV prevention.

Despite the common belief that human papillomavirus (HPV) primarily affects women, it is imperative to recognize and address the impact of HPV on boys and men. Overlooking the health implications for males is a notable gap, as efforts have predominantly focused on preventing HPV-related infections in women. This commentary aims to emphasize the importance of HPV awareness and vaccination for boys and men by highlighting the prevalence and consequences of HPV infection, elaborating on the associated health risks, elucidating the benefits of vaccination, and urging readers to recognize the necessity of protecting males from HPV.

Feasibility and Acceptability of Providing Cognitive Remediation in a Large USA System of Coordinated Specialty Care for Early Psychosis.

Introduction: Multinational treatment guidelines support providing cognitive remediation to people recently diagnosed with schizophrenia, but the feasibility of implementing the treatment on a large scale is less well understood.

Methods: This study took place between 2019 and 2023 at 14 clinics within a large network of programs providing early intervention services to people aged 16-30 experiencing nonaffective psychosis. Clinics were randomly assigned to deliver cognitive remediation as twice-weekly clinician-led groups (N = 5), cognitive remediation as once-weekly clinician-led groups with homework (N = 6), or treatment as usual (N = 3).

COVID-19 Knowledge Among Sexual and Gender Minority Adults in New York City.

This study describes sources of COVID-19 vaccine information and COVID-19 knowledge among sexual and gender minority (SGM) adults in New York City (NYC). A sample of 986 SGM adults in NYC completed an online survey between June 25 and December 1, 2021. Participants indicated their top three sources of COVID-19 vaccine information from a list of 10 options.

Social Media-Based Brief Video Interventions to Support Youths' Mental Health.

Social media platforms are communication forums with potential benefits and disadvantages for youths' mental health. In this column, the author focuses on two main themes. First, recognizing the need for carefully crafted interventions, the author advocates for the use of crowdsourcing platforms to test and refine social media-based video content.

Update on the assessment of resistance to antidepressant treatment: Rationale for the Antidepressant Treatment History Form: Short Form-2 (ATHF-SF2).

All definitions of treatment-resistant depression (TRD) require that patients have experienced insufficient benefit from one or more adequate antidepressant trials. Thus, identifying "failed, adequate trials" is key to the assessment of TRD. The Antidepressant Treatment History Form (ATHF) was one of the first and most widely used instruments that provided objective criteria in making these assessments.

Comparing brief video interventions to reduce public and self-stigma: Randomized control trial.

Aim: Stigma is a major mental healthcare barrier. This study compares the efficacy of two types of brief video interventions, targeting public and self-stigma, in reducing public stigma towards people living with psychosis. We hypothesized both interventions would similarly reduce public stigma and outperform the control group.

The role of income and emotional engagement in the efficacy of a brief help-seeking video intervention for essential workers.

Background: Recently we showed that a brief video-based intervention can improve openness to help-seeking and decrease treatment-related stigma among essential workers, particularly for female and Black individuals viewing demographically matched protagonists. The current randomized controlled trial explored two additional factors which may enhance the efficacy of this intervention: income level, known to be associated with help-seeking, and emotional engagement, which may enhance a person's ability to engage with the intervention. We hypothesized that income level and emotional engagement would correlate with changes in openness to help-seeking ("openness") and stigma.

Randomized Controlled Trial of a Brief Video Intervention to Reduce Self-Stigma of Mental Illness.

Self-stigma, a phenomenon wherein individuals internalize self-directed negative stereotypes about mental illness, is associated with negative outcomes related to recovery. This randomized controlled study assessed the efficacy of a brief social contact-based video intervention in reducing self-stigma in a large sample of individuals ages 18-35 endorsing an ongoing mental health condition. We hypothesized that the brief video would reduce self-stigma.

Personal Recovery Among People at Risk for Developing Serious Mental Health Problems: A Qualitative Systematic Review.

Objective: Personal recovery refers to a person's pursuit of a full, meaningful life despite the potentially debilitating impact of a mental illness. An evidence base describing personal recovery among people at risk for developing a mental illness is lacking, limiting the potential for mental health services to support personal recovery. To address this gap, the authors synthesized the extant research describing personal recovery among people at risk for developing a mental illness.

"It's Tough to Be a Black Man with Schizophrenia": Randomized Controlled Trial of a Brief Video Intervention to Reduce Public Stigma.

Background And Hypothesis: Racial discrimination and public stigma toward Black individuals living with schizophrenia create disparities in treatment-seeking and engagement. Brief, social-contact-based video interventions efficaciously reduce stigma. It remains unclear whether including racial identity experiences in video narrative yields greater stigma reduction.

Associations Between Family History of Alcohol and/or Substance Use Problems and Frontal Cortical Development From 9 to 13 Years of Age: A Longitudinal Analysis of the ABCD Study.

Background: Previous investigations that have examined associations between family history (FH) of alcohol/substance use and adolescent brain development have been primarily cross-sectional. Here, leveraging a large population-based sample of youths, we characterized frontal cortical trajectories among 9- to 13-year-olds with (FH+) versus without (FH-) an FH and examined sex as a potential moderator.

Methods: We used data from 9710 participants in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study (release 4.

Discriminative-stimulus effects of cannabidiol oil in Sprague-Dawley rats.

Cannabidiol (CBD) is one of the major centrally active phytocannabinoid components of cannabis, and has been approved by the FDA only for the treatment of seizures associated with three rare disorders. It has also been touted as a potential treatment for anxiety in place of more traditional treatments like benzodiazepines. Although there is some evidence of anxiolytic effects of CBD, its suitability as a substitute for benzodiazepines is unknown.

Using focus groups to inform a brief video intervention to reduce public stigma toward Black youth living with psychosis.

Objective: Black individuals living with psychosis are at risk for stigma and marginalization due to systematic discrimination and barriers to receiving treatment. Social contact-based interventions have the potential to reduce stigma; however, interventions with elements specific to the experiences of Black youth are limited. Therefore, we aimed to gather input from Black youth living with psychosis to develop a social contact-based, brief video intervention to reduce public stigma toward Black youth with psychosis.

HIV Focused Sexual Risk-Reduction Interventions Targeting Adolescent Boys and Young Men in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Scoping Review.

Adolescent girls and young women's exceptionalism with HIV interventions has left adolescent boys and young men (ABYM) trailing behind, thus becoming a marginalized and underserved population. The scoping review aimed to provide an overview of interventions that have targeted sexual risk behaviors in ABYM in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) over the previous 21 years with critical insights on 'what works' in preventing the sexual transmission of HIV. A scoping review guided by Arksey and O'Malley's (in Int J Soc Res Methodol 8(1):19-32, 16) framework and the 2015 Johanna Briggs Institute's guidelines was conducted.

Implementing six multi-month dispensing of antiretroviral therapy in Ethiopia: perspectives of clients and healthcare workers.

Background: Multi-month dispensing (MMD) of antiretroviral therapy (ART) is an integral component of differentiated HIV service delivery for people living with HIV (PLHIV). Although many countries have scaled up ART dispensing to 3-month intervals, Ethiopia was the first African country to implement six-month dispensing (6-MMD) at scale, introducing its Appointment Spacing Model (ASM) for people doing well on ART in 2017. As of June 2021, 51.

The role of non-ordinary states of consciousness occasioned by mind-body practices in mental health illness.

Background: Research with hallucinogens suggests that non-ordinary states of consciousness (NOSCs), particularly mystical-type experiences, predict improvements in various affective disorders and substance use disorders (SUDs). Little is known, however, about the therapeutic potential of NOSCs induced by mind-body practices such as meditation, yoga and breathwork.

Methods: We conducted a literature review in online databases (PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar) and preprint databases (SSRN, bioRxiv) to identify studies of NOSCs induced by mind-body practices and their effects in affective disorders and SUDs.

Impulsivity and Treatment Outcomes in Individuals with Cocaine Use Disorder: Examining the Gap between Interest and Adherence.

: Impulsivity is implicated in the development and maintenance of Cocaine Use Disorder (CUD). Less work has examined impulsivity's role on interest in initiating treatment, treatment adherence, or treatment response. No pharmacotherapies are approved for CUD, so efforts to understand and bolster the effects of psychotherapy are important in guiding and refining treatment.