While a guest on "The Daily Show" in September, Bill Clinton reflected on the current state of national politics, especially the harsh relationship between the two major parties.
He noted that, unlike 30 years ago, most people in Congress now must travel home every weekend to raise money and they must stay out every weeknight to attend fundraisers. As a result, Clinton said, today's senators and representatives are chronically sleep deprived. He argued that this sleep loss might be contributing to the current spirit of ill-tempered incivility in Washington.
As Clinton said during the interview, "I know this is an unusual theory but I do believe sleep deprivation has a lot to do with some of the edginess of Washington today. You have no idea how many Republican and Democratic members of the House and Senate are chronically sleep deprived because of this [fundraising] system."
I've often argued in this blog that most people in our society do not get enough sleep. Insufficient sleep doesn't just make people sleepy, it affects their mood, concentration, and performance.
Research also has shown that sleep deprivation can have negative effects on our endocrine and immune systems. Inadequate sleep increases our appetite and thus may contribute to obesity, and it weakens our defenses against infections. Since sleep insufficiency is so widespread, it becomes a significant public health problem for society at large.
I'll continue to argue that we need to give sleep a higher priority in our lives because the quality of our lives ultimately depends on it. When we shortchange our sleep time, we also diminish our waking existence.
While we already knew that insufficient sleep was a big problem, Bill Clinton has added a fascinating new dimension to the societal consequences of sleep loss.
2007年12月21日星期五
Study says foster care benefits brains
Toddlers rescued from orphanages and placed in good foster homes score dramatically higher on IQ tests years later than children who were left behind, concludes a one-of-a-kind project in Romania that has profound implications for child welfare around the globe.
The boost meant the difference between borderline retardation and average intelligence for some youngsters.
Most important, children removed from orphanages before age 2 had the biggest improvement — key new evidence of a sensitive period for brain development, according to the U.S. team that conducted the research.
"What we're really talking about is the importance of getting kids out of bad environments and put into good environments," said Dr. Charles Nelson III of Harvard Medical School, who led the study being published Friday in the journal Science.
The younger that happens, "the less likely the child is to have major problems," he added.
The research is credited with influencing child-care changes in Romania, and UNICEF has begun using the data to push numerous countries that still depend on state-run orphanages to start shifting to foster care-like systems.
"The research provides concrete scientific evidence on the long-term impacts of the deprivation of quality care for children," UNICEF child protection specialist Aaron Greenberg said. "The interesting part about this is the one-on-one caring of a young child impacts ... cognitive and intellectual development."
That orphanages are not optimal for child development comes as no surprise. Earlier studies have found that thousands of children adopted during the 1990s from squalid orphanages in Eastern Europe, China and elsewhere continued to face serious developmental problems even after moving to affluent new homes with doting parents.
But questions remain. Were those abandoned or orphaned children who spent more time in orphanages less healthy to begin with? How much damage does neglect and lack of stimulation in the early months of life do? How long does that damage last?
In the study, U.S. researchers randomly assigned 136 young children in Bucharest's six orphanages to either keep living there or live with foster parents who were specially trained and paid for by the study. Romania had no foster-care system in 2000 when the research began.
The team chose apparently healthy children. Researchers repeatedly tested brain development as those children grew, and tracked those who ultimately were adopted or reunited with family. For comparison, they also tested the cognitive ability of children who never were institutionalized.
By 4 1/2, youngsters in foster care were scoring almost 10 points higher on IQ tests than the children left in orphanages. Children who left the orphanages before 2 saw an almost 15-point increase.
Nelson compared the ages at which children were sent to foster care. For every extra month spent in the orphanage, up to almost age 3, it meant roughly a half-point lower score on those later IQ tests.
Children raised in their biological homes still fared best, with average test scores 10 points to 20 points higher than the foster-care kids.
What does that mean as these children grow up? Just this week an anxious acquaintance cornered Nelson to ask what to expect of a child who spent nine months in a Vietnamese orphanage.
The boost meant the difference between borderline retardation and average intelligence for some youngsters.
Most important, children removed from orphanages before age 2 had the biggest improvement — key new evidence of a sensitive period for brain development, according to the U.S. team that conducted the research.
"What we're really talking about is the importance of getting kids out of bad environments and put into good environments," said Dr. Charles Nelson III of Harvard Medical School, who led the study being published Friday in the journal Science.
The younger that happens, "the less likely the child is to have major problems," he added.
The research is credited with influencing child-care changes in Romania, and UNICEF has begun using the data to push numerous countries that still depend on state-run orphanages to start shifting to foster care-like systems.
"The research provides concrete scientific evidence on the long-term impacts of the deprivation of quality care for children," UNICEF child protection specialist Aaron Greenberg said. "The interesting part about this is the one-on-one caring of a young child impacts ... cognitive and intellectual development."
That orphanages are not optimal for child development comes as no surprise. Earlier studies have found that thousands of children adopted during the 1990s from squalid orphanages in Eastern Europe, China and elsewhere continued to face serious developmental problems even after moving to affluent new homes with doting parents.
But questions remain. Were those abandoned or orphaned children who spent more time in orphanages less healthy to begin with? How much damage does neglect and lack of stimulation in the early months of life do? How long does that damage last?
In the study, U.S. researchers randomly assigned 136 young children in Bucharest's six orphanages to either keep living there or live with foster parents who were specially trained and paid for by the study. Romania had no foster-care system in 2000 when the research began.
The team chose apparently healthy children. Researchers repeatedly tested brain development as those children grew, and tracked those who ultimately were adopted or reunited with family. For comparison, they also tested the cognitive ability of children who never were institutionalized.
By 4 1/2, youngsters in foster care were scoring almost 10 points higher on IQ tests than the children left in orphanages. Children who left the orphanages before 2 saw an almost 15-point increase.
Nelson compared the ages at which children were sent to foster care. For every extra month spent in the orphanage, up to almost age 3, it meant roughly a half-point lower score on those later IQ tests.
Children raised in their biological homes still fared best, with average test scores 10 points to 20 points higher than the foster-care kids.
What does that mean as these children grow up? Just this week an anxious acquaintance cornered Nelson to ask what to expect of a child who spent nine months in a Vietnamese orphanage.
2007年12月19日星期三
Cancer Docs' Bedside Manner Often Lacks Empathy
Most cancer specialists do not respond to the emotional concerns of their patients with verbal expressions of empathy and support, a new study reveals.
The finding suggests that cancer patients' quality of life might be significantly improved if doctors were better trained to recognize and address patients' emotional concerns as they battle the disease.
"We audio-recorded doctor-patient interactions, and we analyzed them, and what we found is that when patients expressed negative emotions, doctors did not always respond empathetically," said study author Kathryn L. Pollak, an associate professor at Duke University Medical Center's Community and Family Medicine Department, in Durham, N.C.
Pollak's team published its findings in the Dec. 20 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
To assess the frequency of empathetic interactions in an oncology setting, the authors first surveyed 51 oncologists who were caring for a total of 270 cancer patients at Duke, the Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center, or the University of Pittsburgh.
The physicians, mostly white and male, were questioned about their level of confidence in addressing patient concerns; their sense of how various communication approaches might affect a patient; and their general comfort level with psycho-social types of conversation.
As well, the doctors were asked if they felt they were more inclined toward the technological and scientific aspects of patient care or more disposed to focus on the social and emotional side of treatment.
The researchers also recorded almost 400 audiotapes of conversations that had taken place between physicians and patients.
All the patients had advanced-stage cancer, and their physicians indicated that they would not be surprised if they ended up dying from their illness within a year. Almost three-quarters of the patients were white, and they averaged a little over 60 years of age.
Most of the patients had established a relationship with their oncologist -- 90 percent said they had known their doctor for at least six months prior to the study.
According to the researchers, more than two-thirds of the physicians said they were oriented toward the technical aspects of patient care, but most were also highly confident in their ability to deal with patient concerns. Most of the doctors also believed they were comfortable with emotionally charged conversations.
Yet, after reviewing all the tapes, Pollak and her colleagues determined that cases in which doctors responded to patients' concerns with empathy were rare.
Fewer than 300 so-called "empathic opportunities" occurred during the almost 400 conversations. Such opportunities were defined as points at which a patient had verbally expressed negative emotions -- such as fear or worry -- to which the doctor could respond as he or she saw fit.
Female patients were more likely to express such feelings, particularly if their doctor was also female, the researchers observed.
When such emotions were expressed, almost three-quarters of the time doctors chose to "terminate" the conversation by offering, for example, blanket reassurance that time would solve the problem.
Occasions in which doctors would empathetically promote "continuation" of the conversation by encouraging elaboration and/or expressing some form of understanding or support were far less frequent, occurring little more than a quarter of the time.
Oncologists who offered more empathic statements were younger than those who didn't, and those who stayed longer to converse with the distressed patient were more likely to have described themselves as highly focused on the emotional dimension of patient care.
The research team concluded that oncologists need better education to recognize and respond appropriately to patients' emotions.
"Oncologists clearly care about their patients," said Pollak. "They wouldn't go into oncology if they didn't. But oncology is a really challenging field, and, in general, oncologists have not been trained in how to communicate with patients. So, it's a pretty difficult situation for them."
"The good news is that the ability to communicate is something that can be taught," she added. "I wouldn't say it's an innate skill. Many doctors who say they are less comfortable conveying emotions with patients suffer from a lack of training. What they need is to be taught how to verbalize how they feel, and there have been several programs around the world that have shown that this kind of communication training can produce good communicators."
Pollak noted that she and her team are now conducting a follow-up study to see how communication skills might improve if oncologists were given personalized CD-Roms to screen video of their own interactions with patient. Data from the study has yet to be analyzed.
Another expert agreed that training could only help.
"The emphasis in medical school is not usually focused on the emotional side of things," noted Kevin Ochsner, an assistant professor of psychology at Columbia University, New York City. "It's about being able to get the diagnosis right. But, in fact, it's as important to communicate that a patient's feelings matter and are an important part of the equation as it is to convey the probability that a certain procedure will or will not have a positive outcome."
"Empathy," added Ochsner, "is the social glue that knits people together because the ability to connect with one another emotionally and to understand the feelings of one another promotes rapport and bonding. So, making patients feel that they're heard will help them feel secure and less anxious. It helps regulate their emotions, and this has all kinds of important mental and physical health effects."
The finding suggests that cancer patients' quality of life might be significantly improved if doctors were better trained to recognize and address patients' emotional concerns as they battle the disease.
"We audio-recorded doctor-patient interactions, and we analyzed them, and what we found is that when patients expressed negative emotions, doctors did not always respond empathetically," said study author Kathryn L. Pollak, an associate professor at Duke University Medical Center's Community and Family Medicine Department, in Durham, N.C.
Pollak's team published its findings in the Dec. 20 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
To assess the frequency of empathetic interactions in an oncology setting, the authors first surveyed 51 oncologists who were caring for a total of 270 cancer patients at Duke, the Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center, or the University of Pittsburgh.
The physicians, mostly white and male, were questioned about their level of confidence in addressing patient concerns; their sense of how various communication approaches might affect a patient; and their general comfort level with psycho-social types of conversation.
As well, the doctors were asked if they felt they were more inclined toward the technological and scientific aspects of patient care or more disposed to focus on the social and emotional side of treatment.
The researchers also recorded almost 400 audiotapes of conversations that had taken place between physicians and patients.
All the patients had advanced-stage cancer, and their physicians indicated that they would not be surprised if they ended up dying from their illness within a year. Almost three-quarters of the patients were white, and they averaged a little over 60 years of age.
Most of the patients had established a relationship with their oncologist -- 90 percent said they had known their doctor for at least six months prior to the study.
According to the researchers, more than two-thirds of the physicians said they were oriented toward the technical aspects of patient care, but most were also highly confident in their ability to deal with patient concerns. Most of the doctors also believed they were comfortable with emotionally charged conversations.
Yet, after reviewing all the tapes, Pollak and her colleagues determined that cases in which doctors responded to patients' concerns with empathy were rare.
Fewer than 300 so-called "empathic opportunities" occurred during the almost 400 conversations. Such opportunities were defined as points at which a patient had verbally expressed negative emotions -- such as fear or worry -- to which the doctor could respond as he or she saw fit.
Female patients were more likely to express such feelings, particularly if their doctor was also female, the researchers observed.
When such emotions were expressed, almost three-quarters of the time doctors chose to "terminate" the conversation by offering, for example, blanket reassurance that time would solve the problem.
Occasions in which doctors would empathetically promote "continuation" of the conversation by encouraging elaboration and/or expressing some form of understanding or support were far less frequent, occurring little more than a quarter of the time.
Oncologists who offered more empathic statements were younger than those who didn't, and those who stayed longer to converse with the distressed patient were more likely to have described themselves as highly focused on the emotional dimension of patient care.
The research team concluded that oncologists need better education to recognize and respond appropriately to patients' emotions.
"Oncologists clearly care about their patients," said Pollak. "They wouldn't go into oncology if they didn't. But oncology is a really challenging field, and, in general, oncologists have not been trained in how to communicate with patients. So, it's a pretty difficult situation for them."
"The good news is that the ability to communicate is something that can be taught," she added. "I wouldn't say it's an innate skill. Many doctors who say they are less comfortable conveying emotions with patients suffer from a lack of training. What they need is to be taught how to verbalize how they feel, and there have been several programs around the world that have shown that this kind of communication training can produce good communicators."
Pollak noted that she and her team are now conducting a follow-up study to see how communication skills might improve if oncologists were given personalized CD-Roms to screen video of their own interactions with patient. Data from the study has yet to be analyzed.
Another expert agreed that training could only help.
"The emphasis in medical school is not usually focused on the emotional side of things," noted Kevin Ochsner, an assistant professor of psychology at Columbia University, New York City. "It's about being able to get the diagnosis right. But, in fact, it's as important to communicate that a patient's feelings matter and are an important part of the equation as it is to convey the probability that a certain procedure will or will not have a positive outcome."
"Empathy," added Ochsner, "is the social glue that knits people together because the ability to connect with one another emotionally and to understand the feelings of one another promotes rapport and bonding. So, making patients feel that they're heard will help them feel secure and less anxious. It helps regulate their emotions, and this has all kinds of important mental and physical health effects."
Ear Infection May Not Need Antibiotic
If your child has an ear infection, it's important to take the child to a doctor for proper diagnosis and treatment. The pediatrician will determine if the infection is bacterial or viral.
Here are suggestions on how to treat your child's ear infection, courtesy of the American Academy of Family Physicians:
If the infection is bacterial, your doctor probably will prescribe an antibiotic.
If the infection is viral, an antibiotic won't treat it, so prescribing one may be counterproductive.
You can give your child a pain reliever, such as acetaminophen or ibuprofen. Don't give your child aspirin, unless the doctor says so.
Apply a warm heating pad to the ear to relieve pain.
The doctor may prescribe ear drops.
Here are suggestions on how to treat your child's ear infection, courtesy of the American Academy of Family Physicians:
If the infection is bacterial, your doctor probably will prescribe an antibiotic.
If the infection is viral, an antibiotic won't treat it, so prescribing one may be counterproductive.
You can give your child a pain reliever, such as acetaminophen or ibuprofen. Don't give your child aspirin, unless the doctor says so.
Apply a warm heating pad to the ear to relieve pain.
The doctor may prescribe ear drops.
Congress OKs Va Tech-inspired gun bill
Congress on Wednesday passed a long-stalled bill inspired by the Virginia Tech shootings that would more easily flag prospective gun buyers who have documented mental health problems. The measure also would help states with the cost.
Passage by voice votes in the House and Senate came after months of negotiations between Senate Democrats and the lone Republican, Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who had objected and delayed passage.
It was not immediately clear whether President Bush intended to sign, veto or ignore the bill. If Congress does not technically go out of session, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has threatened, the bill would become law if Bush does not act within 10 days.
"This bill will make America safer without affecting the rights of a single law-abiding citizen," said the Senate's chief sponsor, New York Democrat Chuck Schumer.
One of the House's chief sponsors, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, spoke in the full House about her husband, who was killed by a gunman on the Long Island Railroad in New York. "To me, this is the best Christmas present I could ever receive," said McCarthy, D-N.Y.
Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., added that the bill will speed up background checks and reinforce the rights of law abiding gun owners.
Propelling the bill were the Virginia Tech shootings on April 16 and rare agreement between political foes, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the National Rifle Association.
But other interest groups said that in forging compromise with the gun lobby, the bill's authors unintentionally imposed an unnecessary burden on government agencies by freeing up thousands of people to buy guns.
"Rather than focusing on improving the current laws prohibiting people with certain mental health disabilities from buying guns, the bill is now nothing more than a gun lobby wish list," said Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center. "It will waste millions of taxpayer dollars restoring the gun privileges of persons previously determined to present a danger to themselves or others."
The measure would clarify what mental health records should be reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which help gun dealers determine whether to sell a firearm to a prospective buyer, and give states financial incentives for compliance. The attorney general could penalize states if they fail to meet compliance targets.
Despite the combined superpowers of bill's supporters, Coburn held it up for months because he worried that millions of dollars in new spending would not be paid for by cuts in other programs.
His chief concern, he said, was that it did not pay for successful appeals by veterans or other people who say they are wrongly barred from buying a gun.
Just before midnight Tuesday, Coburn and the Democratic supporters of the bill struck a deal: The government would pay for the cost of appeals by gun owners and prospective buyers who argue successfully in court that they were wrongly deemed unqualified for mental health reasons.
The compromise would require that incorrect records — such as expunged mental health rulings that once disqualified a prospective gun buyer but no longer do — be removed from system within 30 days.
The original bill would require any agency, such as the Veterans Administration or the Defense Department, to notify a person flagged as mentally ill and disqualified from buying or possessing a gun. The new version now also would require the notification when someone has been cleared of that restriction.
The bill would authorize up to $250 million a year over five years for the states and as much as $125 million a year over the same period for state courts to help defray the cost of enacting the policy.
Propelling the long-sought legislation were the April 16 killings at Virginia Tech. Student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 students and himself using two guns he had bought despite his documented history of mental illness.
Cho had been ruled a danger to himself during a court commitment hearing in 2005. He had been ordered to have outpatient mental health treatment and should have been barred from buying the two guns he used. But Virginia never forwarded the information to the national background check system.
Passage by voice votes in the House and Senate came after months of negotiations between Senate Democrats and the lone Republican, Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who had objected and delayed passage.
It was not immediately clear whether President Bush intended to sign, veto or ignore the bill. If Congress does not technically go out of session, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has threatened, the bill would become law if Bush does not act within 10 days.
"This bill will make America safer without affecting the rights of a single law-abiding citizen," said the Senate's chief sponsor, New York Democrat Chuck Schumer.
One of the House's chief sponsors, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, spoke in the full House about her husband, who was killed by a gunman on the Long Island Railroad in New York. "To me, this is the best Christmas present I could ever receive," said McCarthy, D-N.Y.
Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., added that the bill will speed up background checks and reinforce the rights of law abiding gun owners.
Propelling the bill were the Virginia Tech shootings on April 16 and rare agreement between political foes, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the National Rifle Association.
But other interest groups said that in forging compromise with the gun lobby, the bill's authors unintentionally imposed an unnecessary burden on government agencies by freeing up thousands of people to buy guns.
"Rather than focusing on improving the current laws prohibiting people with certain mental health disabilities from buying guns, the bill is now nothing more than a gun lobby wish list," said Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center. "It will waste millions of taxpayer dollars restoring the gun privileges of persons previously determined to present a danger to themselves or others."
The measure would clarify what mental health records should be reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which help gun dealers determine whether to sell a firearm to a prospective buyer, and give states financial incentives for compliance. The attorney general could penalize states if they fail to meet compliance targets.
Despite the combined superpowers of bill's supporters, Coburn held it up for months because he worried that millions of dollars in new spending would not be paid for by cuts in other programs.
His chief concern, he said, was that it did not pay for successful appeals by veterans or other people who say they are wrongly barred from buying a gun.
Just before midnight Tuesday, Coburn and the Democratic supporters of the bill struck a deal: The government would pay for the cost of appeals by gun owners and prospective buyers who argue successfully in court that they were wrongly deemed unqualified for mental health reasons.
The compromise would require that incorrect records — such as expunged mental health rulings that once disqualified a prospective gun buyer but no longer do — be removed from system within 30 days.
The original bill would require any agency, such as the Veterans Administration or the Defense Department, to notify a person flagged as mentally ill and disqualified from buying or possessing a gun. The new version now also would require the notification when someone has been cleared of that restriction.
The bill would authorize up to $250 million a year over five years for the states and as much as $125 million a year over the same period for state courts to help defray the cost of enacting the policy.
Propelling the long-sought legislation were the April 16 killings at Virginia Tech. Student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 students and himself using two guns he had bought despite his documented history of mental illness.
Cho had been ruled a danger to himself during a court commitment hearing in 2005. He had been ordered to have outpatient mental health treatment and should have been barred from buying the two guns he used. But Virginia never forwarded the information to the national background check system.
2007年12月14日星期五
Seasonal Affective Disorder and Wellbutrin
During this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere, people sometimes complain of feeling down or depressed. For some of them, this may not just be a case of the holiday blues but a real condition called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).
SAD was recognized as a type of depression at the same time that bright light therapy was shown to be an effective treatment for it. Generally, SAD is a mild-to-moderate depression that occurs at the same time of year - starting in the autumn months and persisting until spring. SAD tends to be more common in latitudes further away from the equator.
Although people with SAD usually do not suffer a severe depression, the fact that it occurs for several months each year leads to significant impairment for these individuals. During the winter months they may feel sluggish, lack motivation, and be less productive than other times of the year. Often, they feel that they are unable to get enough sleep and may gain weight each year during the winter.
Even though the precise cause of this pattern of depression is not yet known, some experts have speculated about the relationships between shortened daylight hours and changing levels of melatonin secretion and serotonin activity. However, we still do not know why certain people are more vulnerable to this type of depression.
The use of therapeutic light boxes has become the standard treatment for this pattern of depression. Several different antidepressants also have been shown to help. In 2006, the antidepressant Wellbutrin XL (bupropion hydrochloride extended-release tablets) was approved by the FDA for a new indication: treatment of recurrent major depressive episodes with the SAD pattern.
Three separate clinical trials demonstrated the efficacy of Wellbutrin XL when treatment is started during autumn (September to November in the Northern Hemisphere) and continued until the following March.
While Wellbutrin XL was safe and effective in the SAD studies, side effects that may occur with this medication include agitation, insomnia, and anxiety. And, as with other antidepressants, the FDA-approved label includes a warning about possible increased suicidal thinking in children taking antidepressants.
SAD was recognized as a type of depression at the same time that bright light therapy was shown to be an effective treatment for it. Generally, SAD is a mild-to-moderate depression that occurs at the same time of year - starting in the autumn months and persisting until spring. SAD tends to be more common in latitudes further away from the equator.
Although people with SAD usually do not suffer a severe depression, the fact that it occurs for several months each year leads to significant impairment for these individuals. During the winter months they may feel sluggish, lack motivation, and be less productive than other times of the year. Often, they feel that they are unable to get enough sleep and may gain weight each year during the winter.
Even though the precise cause of this pattern of depression is not yet known, some experts have speculated about the relationships between shortened daylight hours and changing levels of melatonin secretion and serotonin activity. However, we still do not know why certain people are more vulnerable to this type of depression.
The use of therapeutic light boxes has become the standard treatment for this pattern of depression. Several different antidepressants also have been shown to help. In 2006, the antidepressant Wellbutrin XL (bupropion hydrochloride extended-release tablets) was approved by the FDA for a new indication: treatment of recurrent major depressive episodes with the SAD pattern.
Three separate clinical trials demonstrated the efficacy of Wellbutrin XL when treatment is started during autumn (September to November in the Northern Hemisphere) and continued until the following March.
While Wellbutrin XL was safe and effective in the SAD studies, side effects that may occur with this medication include agitation, insomnia, and anxiety. And, as with other antidepressants, the FDA-approved label includes a warning about possible increased suicidal thinking in children taking antidepressants.
Suicide and Black Americans
For more than a century, scientists have studied the suicide rates among people of different demographic and ethnic groups. Age, sex, and race all appear to be important variables. The risk of suicide increases with age - it is low among children and highest among elderly people. Whites commit suicide more often than African-Americans. Men are more likely than women to kill themselves, although more women attempt suicide.
A recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association focused on recent trends among black Americans in the U.S. The study surveyed more than 5,000 black Americans - 3,500 African-Americans and 1,600 blacks of Caribbean origin. The data included the age of first suicidal ideation, and rates of suicide planning and suicide attempts. Overall, there has been an increase in suicidal thoughts and behaviors compared with surveys from the 1980s.
The researchers reported that 11.7 percent of these black Americans had suicidal ideations and 4.1 percent had made suicide attempts. These behaviors began most often in the late teen years and early 20s. Actual suicide planning occurred most often within the first year of the initial suicidal ideation.
Factors that increased the risk of suicidality - having suicidal thoughts or planning or attempting suicide - in this group included having a mental illness and a low education level. Blacks of Caribbean origin had higher rates than African-Americans.
An important finding of this study was that many of the suicidal black Americans never sought treatment for their emotional problems.
The key message is that mental health centers - and suicide prevention programs in particular - can now target people at high risk of suicide among late teen and early adult black Americans. Identifying and treating psychiatric disorders should definitely reduce suicidality. Of course, addressing societal stressors like poverty and unemployment should also have a positive influence in reducing suicides.
A recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association focused on recent trends among black Americans in the U.S. The study surveyed more than 5,000 black Americans - 3,500 African-Americans and 1,600 blacks of Caribbean origin. The data included the age of first suicidal ideation, and rates of suicide planning and suicide attempts. Overall, there has been an increase in suicidal thoughts and behaviors compared with surveys from the 1980s.
The researchers reported that 11.7 percent of these black Americans had suicidal ideations and 4.1 percent had made suicide attempts. These behaviors began most often in the late teen years and early 20s. Actual suicide planning occurred most often within the first year of the initial suicidal ideation.
Factors that increased the risk of suicidality - having suicidal thoughts or planning or attempting suicide - in this group included having a mental illness and a low education level. Blacks of Caribbean origin had higher rates than African-Americans.
An important finding of this study was that many of the suicidal black Americans never sought treatment for their emotional problems.
The key message is that mental health centers - and suicide prevention programs in particular - can now target people at high risk of suicide among late teen and early adult black Americans. Identifying and treating psychiatric disorders should definitely reduce suicidality. Of course, addressing societal stressors like poverty and unemployment should also have a positive influence in reducing suicides.
订阅：
博文 (Atom)