DeFife et alArticle report on a 2-part study examining the reliability and validity of a novel prototype-matching approach for mood and anxiety disorder diagnosis. Prototype ratings from independent clinical and research observers exhibited acceptable cross-method validity and provided substantial incremental validity over DSM-IV diagnoses for predicting patient adaptive functioning.
Kuramoto et alArticle examined if the pattern of risk for suicide attempt hospitalization differs by offspring age at the time of parental suicide or fatal unintentional injury using population-based longitudinal data in Sweden. Their results suggest critical windows for careful monitoring and intervention for suicide attempt.
Using a population-based sample, Bolton et alArticle examined the health and social outcomes of parents who had an offspring die by suicide. Suicide bereavement was associated with an increased rate of depression, anxiety disorders, and marital breakup in the 2 years following the death. When suicide-bereaved parents were compared with parents who had lost an offspring in a motor vehicle crash, very few differences were observed.
Di Florio et alArticle report on perinatal episodes in women with bipolar disorder types I and II and recurrent major depression. Postpartum mood disorder episodes were more common in bipolar disorder type I, and manic and psychotic presentations occurred earlier in the post partum than onsets of depression. Two-thirds of all groups experienced at least 1 episode of illness during pregnancy or the post partum.
Wium-Andersen et alArticle examined the association between C-reactive protein and different end points of psychological distress and depression in 73 131 men and women from 2 independent Danish general population studies. Elevated C-reactive protein level was associated with symptoms of psychological distress, use of antidepressant medication, and hospitalization with depression in both cross-sectional and prospective studies. The strong association remained after adjustment for potential confounders.
Hart et alArticle conducted a meta-analysis of all whole-brain functional magnetic resonance imaging studies in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder during tasks of inhibition and attention and showed consistent functional deficits in patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in 2 distinct right-hemispheric frontostriatal functional networks, including the inferior frontal cortex and supplementary motor area for inhibition and the dorsolateral prefrontal and parietal cortices for attention.
Blanco et alArticle used national data on patterns of comorbidity to construct a virtual space of common psychiatric disorders, spanned by 3 factors reflecting major psychopathological dimensions. They then located psychiatric disorders in that space and calculated the distance between disorders using the loadings of the factors as the coordinates of the disorders in that space. The distance between disorders at baseline is highly predictive of the prevalence and incidence of disorders 3 years later.
Kisely et alArticle investigated why the incidence of many cancers in psychiatric patients is no higher than that of the general population while mortality from the same cancers was higher. Psychiatric patients were more likely to have metastases at the time of cancer presentation and were less likely to receive surgery and radiotherapy or chemotherapy.
Ramanathan et alArticle using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, examined the effects of an adverse macroeconomic environment during infancy on subsequent adolescent problem behaviors. Exposure to higher regional unemployment rates at 1 year of age is associated with a higher probability of engaging in marijuana use, smoking, alcohol consumption, arrests, gang affiliation, and petty and major thefts.
Abas et alArticle studied nearly 1000 parents 60 years and older from 100 villages in rural Thailand to understand the effect of child migration on parents' depression. Parents whose children had all left the district were half as likely to be depressed as parents who still had 1 or more children close by. Protective factors appeared to include parents having regular contact with their children, strong community links, and the sense they had succeeded as a parent by having a self-sufficient child and being supported financially by migrant children.
In Swedish national data, sibling resemblance for drug abuse (DA) risk was significantly greater in pairs closer vs more distant in age. Kendler et alArticlereport that older siblings more strongly transmitted risk for DA to their younger siblings than vice versa. After one spouse is registered for DA, the other spouse has a large short-lived increase in DA risk. These results support strong familial-environmental influences on DA at various life stages.