Immigration and psychosis

Migration is an accepted risk factor for schizophrenia but the level of risk in second-generation immigrants in unclear. A team of researchers from McGill University in Canada reviewed 21 studies into psychosis among immigrants. They found that while first-generation immigrants were 2.3x as likely to develop psychosis as other people second-generation immigrants were 2.1x as likely. While there was no significant difference in risk between the generations there were wide variations in levels of psychosis between different ethnic groups and different host countries.

Bourque, F., van der Ven, E. and Malla, A. - A meta-analysis of the risk for psychotic disorders among first- and second-generation immigrants Psychological Medicine (2011), 41: 897-910

Elder abuse - who suffers most?

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago have been looking into the issue of older abuse. They used data from two trauma units in Chicago to compare people over 60 admitted after suffering from elder abuse to people of the same age admitted for different reasons. The researchers found that patients admitted after elder abuse were more likely to be women, to suffer from a neurological or mental disorder and to use drugs and were more than twice as likely to have a drink problem. The people who had suffered elder abuse had more severe injuries and worse outcomes. 85% of the perpetrators were family members or partners and 17% of the victims expressed a desire to return to the perpetrator and not to press charges.

Neglectful parents and mental-health problems

Emotional neglect can be defined as 'emotional unresponsiveness, unavailability and neglect characterised by a lack of interaction between parent and child.' It has been linked to children developing more mental-health problems but most research so far has been based on adults' memories of their childhood not how children feel at the time. A team of researchers from the University of Glasgow and the Medical Research Council in Glasgow studied 1,694 children. The children filled out a questionnaire called the Parental Bonding Instrument at 11 to assess their relationship with their parents and then had a computerised psychiatric interview at 15 to assess any mental-health problems. 3% of the children perceived their parents as almost always emotionally neglectful and controlling and this group had more than twice the risk of developing mental-health problems at 15.

Young, Robert, Lennie, Susan and Minnis, Helen - Children’s perceptions of parental emotional

neglect and control and psychopathology Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry
doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2011.02390.x

Even moderate stress can cause long-term problems

A study of more than 17,000 working adults by researchers from the University of Bristol and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden has found that even mild psychological stress can have an effect on people's health. The study followed the participants between 2002 and 2007 and found that higher levels of stress at the start of the study were associated with a significantly greater likelihood of subsequently being awarded long-term disability benefits. However, even those with mild stress were up to 70% more likely to receive disability benefits. One in four of the benefits awarded for physical illnesses such as high blood pressure, angina and stroke and almost two-thirds of those awarded for mental illness were attributable to stress.

Childhood epilepsy and mental-health problems

Children with epilepsy are more likely to have mental-health problems. A team of researchers led by Dr Kristin Alfstad from the National Centre for Epilepsy at Oslo University Hospital in Norway, studied information collected from 14,699 parents by the Norwegian Health Services Research Centre. 110 of the children in the survey had epilepsy and they were over twice as likely to have psychiatric symptoms as other children (38% vs 17%). Girls with epilepsy were more likely to have emotional problems while boys were more likely to have hyperactivity, inattention and problems with relationships. Having epilepsy was a much stronger risk factor for developing mental-health problems in boys than in girls.

Prematurity, poverty and child development

In 2006 12.8% of births in the U.S. were premature. Premature births are linked to delays in motor/neurologic function, intellectual and academic development, language problems, poorer executive functioning and worse behaviour. Premature births are more common in poorer people. Being poor also has an effect on child development and children who are both premature and have poor parents are at an even greater risk of developmental problems. A team of researchers from the University of Maryland and Pennsylvania State University looked into some of these problems in a study of 122 African-American women with premature babies. They found that psychosocial risk (mothers' depression, stress and self-efficacy) and sociodemographic risk (poverty, mothers' education and marital status) were linked to maternal sensitivity which in turn affected the strength of the attachment between the mothers and their children at 12 months. However, the health of the children did not affect maternal sensitivity or later attachment.

Candelaria, Margo,  Teti, Douglas M. and Black, Maureen M. - Multi-risk infants: predicting attachment

security from sociodemographic, psychosocial, and health risk among African-American preterm infants Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2011.02361.x

Hippocampal size and PTSD

The hippocampus is a region of the brain involved in memory and how we interpret the world around us. MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) studies have shown that the hippocampus shrinks in people with chronic post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and that a smaller hippocampus could make people more vulnerable to the condition. A team of researchers, led by Brigitte A. Apfel from the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, compared hippocampal volumes in veterans from the Gulf War. Some had developed PTSD and recovered from it, others had chronic PTSD and others had never had it. The study found that those veterans who had recovered from PTSD had larger hippocampi than those who had not recovered and were similar in size to those who had never had it. The study supports the idea that a smaller hippocampi is a risk factor for PTSD. This could be because common biological factors make people have smaller hippocampi and be more vulnerable to stress or that stress early in life makes people's hippocampi smaller and increases their vulnerability to stress later on.

Sickies - skiving or strategic problem avoidance?

The same levels of illness can lead different people - or the same person at different times - to either take a sickie or struggle into work. A team of researchers, led by Hanna Hultin from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, interviewed more than 400 people from six different workplaces within a few days of them taking sick leave. They found that problems in relationships with colleagues and superiors were more frequent in the days before people took sick leave and that people with a minor ailment were more likely to report sick when they expected that the following workday would be particularly stressful.

NICE issues new Alzheimer's guidelines

The U.K.'s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has changed its policy on the Alzheimer's drugs Aricept, Exelon and Reminyl. Previously the drugs could only be prescribed to people with moderate to severe symptoms but they can now be prescribed to people with milder symptoms as well. The drugs cost around £2.80 per day and slow down the progress of the disease helping people put their affairs in order and stay independent for longer. A fourth drug, Ebixa, which was previously only given late in the progression of the disease can also now be prescribed earlier.

You can find out more about this story here.

Scotland - a nation drinking itself to death

NHS Health Scotland, the state-funded body responsible for trying to promote healthy living in Scotland, has produced an alarming report about the scale of Scotland's drinking problem. Since 1994 sales of pure alcohol per adult per year have increased by 11% to the equivalent of 11.9 litres per person, 21% more than levels in England and Wales and enough, on average, for every adult to exceed the sensible drinking guidelines every week of the year. One in 20 deaths in Scotland is attributable to the effects of alcohol and death rates are six times higher in the most deprived communities than in the most affluent ones. Wine sales have doubled since 1994 and purchases from supermarkets and off licences have increased by 53%. The report links the rise in alcohol consumption to falling prices, relative to income, and the increased public acceptability of drinking.

Christie, Bryan - Increase in alcohol sales in Scotland is driven by low prices and rising affluence British Medical Journal BMJ 2011; 342:d1852

Computer systems cut down medication errors

The psychiatric unit at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore has significantly reduced medication errors by using a computerised prescription system and a new computer system for recording drug side effects. Medication errors can be caused by illegible handwriting, misinterpretation of orders, fatigue, dispensing errors and administrative mistakes. The computer programme used at Johns Hopkins includes help for doctors with drug dosages, drug allergies and drug interactions and patient monitoring. The Patient Safety Net system allows for the recording of all mistakes, no matter how small, and for follow-up, corrective action and the ability to learn from common mistakes. After the introduction of the two systems the medication error rate fell from 27.89 per 1,000 patient days in 2003 to 3.43 per 1,000 patient days in 2007.

You can find out more about this story here.

One in seven U.K. mental-health workers attacked

A new survey of staff working in the U.K.'s National Health Service has shown that one in seven mental health workers suffered physical violence from service users or members of the public last year. The NHS staff survey also showed that 18% of mental-health professionals had suffered bullying, harassment and abuse from service users or the public in 2010. 31% of mental-health workers suffered from stress, second only to ambulance workers. The number of staff suffering violence was down slightly from 18% in 2009 to 15% in 2010 but only 40% of those who experienced verbal abuse and 51% of those who suffered physical abuse felt that their employer would take effective action to deal with it.

Premenstrual troubles and bipolar disorder

Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston have been studying the interaction between premenstrual symptoms and bipolar disorder. They studied 293 women over a year and found that the women with premenstrual worsening of their bipolar disorder had more 'episodes' - mostly of depression - than the other women. They had more symptoms of depression and mania overall, relapsed more rapidly and had more severe symptoms.

Study shows shocking health of mentally ill

People with severe mental illness can have a life expectancy up to 25 years less than other people. However, this is not due to their illness itself but to poor physical health and unhealthy lifestyles. Researchers from the University of East Anglia surveyed 782 people with severe mental illness. They found that inactivity, a poor diet and smoking and drinking too much were the norm. Two thirds of people in the study were overweight or obese and a third had high blood pressure. 52% of them had high cholesterol and a large number of them were being prescribed atypical antipsychotic drugs which are associated with weight gain.

Siblings, autism and theory of mind

Theory of Mind (ToM) can be defined as the ability to work out what other people are thinking and how this might affect their behaviour. In most children ToM shows a significant advance between the ages of three and five. However, the development of ToM is severely delayed in children with autism. Several studies have shown that having brothers and sisters can improve children's ToM and researchers from the University of Queensland in Australia studied 60 children with autism to see if this was the case for them too. The researchers measured the children's ToM, executive functioning, verbal mental age and autism symptoms and compared this to the number of siblings the children had and where they fitted into the sequence. The researchers found that the children with older siblings actually had a weaker ToM, perhaps because their older brothers and sisters helped them to interpret other people's actions and stopped them from developing their own skills. Having younger siblings led to a weak improvement in ToM but this was not significant once mental age and autism symptoms were taken into account.

O'Brien, Karen,  Slaughter, Virginia and Peterson, Candida C. - Sibling influences on theory of mind

development for children with ASD Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry
doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2011.02389.x

Higher up and happier at work sleep better

Researchers from the University of Surrey have been looking into the links between people's working lives and the quality of their sleep. They used data from the Understanding Society survey of 40,000 households carried out by the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex. The survey found that people who were unemployed were over 40% more likely to report sleep difficulties. A third of the people who were least satisfied with their jobs reported poor sleep quality compared to only 18% of the most satisfied. Overall the best sleep was reported by people with higher levels of education and by married people and those in routine occupations reported less sleep than those in professional ones. Women were more likely than men to report poor-quality sleep.

Having children - short-term struggles, long-term happiness

Parents of crying babies, temperamental toddlers and troublesome teenagers should draw comfort from a new study which shows that while having more children makes younger parents less happy the opposite is true for older parents. The World Value Surveys questioned more than 200,000 men and women between 1981 and 2005 and researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany and the University of Pennsylvania have been analysing the results. They found that for parents under 30 levels of happiness decreased with their first child and with every additional child. Mums and dads between 30 and 40 were as happy as their childless peers unless they had four or more children in which case they were less happy. After 40 parents were happier than childless couples unless they had three or more children and people over 50 were happier if they had children, regardless of how many they had. The researchers concluded that after the rigours of rearing young children the children themselves became a source of greater satisfaction and financial and emotional support to their parents. The difference between the levels of happiness of younger and older parents was less marked in countries with more generous welfare systems. So for parents suffering sleepless nights, the terrible twos or staying up late to pick their kids up from the school disco the message is - keep going it will be worth it in the end!

How parents can stop their children binge drinking

Anna-Karin Danielsson from the Department of Public Health Sciences at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden has been looking into the factors behind teenage binge drinking in her Ph.D. thesis. She monitored 1,200 pupils aged between 13 and 19 between 2001 and 2006. She found that the teenagers who displayed risky behaviour at 13 were more at risk of high alcohol consumption and associated problems with their health, school work, parents and friends later. For boys the risk was reduced when parents kept an eye on what they were up to while for girls an emotionally-stable and close parent-child relationship had more of a protective effect. The study also compared drinking patterns in different countries and found that Scandinavian countries and the U.K. were different to other countries insofar as girls were just as likely to binge drink as boys.

Green fingers help older adults stay blooming

Green fingers could be just the thing to keep people young in spirit as they get older. Researchers from Texas A & M and Texas State Universities studied 298 people over 50. They found that people who gardened were more satisfied with their lives, were more likely to plan for the future and had more energy. They had a higher level of physical activity, were more likely to rate their health as 'good' or 'excellent' and ate more fruit and vegetables.

Atrial fibrillation and dementia risk

Atrial fibrillation is a disturbance in people's heartbeat. It is harmless in itself but can increase the risk of stroke. A new study, by researchers at the University of East Anglia, suggests that those people who have atrial fibrillation after a stroke are at an increased risk of developing dementia. The researchers analysed 15 studies and found that stroke survivors with atrial fibrillation were 2.4 times as likely to develop dementia. Blood-thinning drugs and medication to slow people's irregular heartbeats are often prescribed to reduce the risk of further strokes and this study shows that they could reduce the incidence of dementia as well.