Population-wide restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic may create barriers to mental health diagnosis. This study aims to examine changes in the number of incident cases and the incidence rates of mental health diagnoses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

By using electronic health records from France, Germany, Italy, South Korea and the UK and claims data from the US, this study conducted interrupted time-series analyses to compare the monthly incident cases and the incidence of depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, alcohol misuse or dependence, substance misuse or dependence, bipolar disorders, personality disorders and psychoses diagnoses before (January 2017 to February 2020) and after (April 2020 to the latest available date of each database [up to November 2021]) the introduction of COVID-related restrictions.

A total of 629,712,954 individuals were enrolled across nine databases. Following the introduction of restrictions, an immediate decline was observed in the number of incident cases of all mental health diagnoses in the US (rate ratios (RRs) ranged from 0.005 to 0.677) and in the incidence of all conditions in France, Germany, Italy and the US (RRs ranged from 0.002 to 0.422). In the UK, significant reductions were only observed in common mental illnesses. The number of incident cases and the incidence began to return to or exceed pre-pandemic levels in most countries from mid-2020 through 2021.

Healthcare providers should be prepared to deliver service adaptations to mitigate burdens directly or indirectly caused by delays in the diagnosis and treatment of mental health conditions.

Several hypotheses may explain the association between substance use, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and depression. However, few studies have utilized a large multisite dataset to understand this complex relationship. Our study assessed the relationship between alcohol and cannabis use trajectories and PTSD and depression symptoms across 3 months in recently trauma-exposed civilians.

In total, 1618 (1037 female) participants provided self-report data on past 30-day alcohol and cannabis use and PTSD and depression symptoms during their emergency department (baseline) visit. We reassessed participant's substance use and clinical symptoms 2, 8, and 12 weeks posttrauma. Latent class mixture modeling determined alcohol and cannabis use trajectories in the sample. Changes in PTSD and depression symptoms were assessed across alcohol and cannabis use trajectories via a mixed-model repeated-measures analysis of variance.

Three trajectory classes (low, high, increasing use) provided the best model fit for alcohol and cannabis use. The low alcohol use class exhibited lower PTSD symptoms at baseline than the high use class; the low cannabis use class exhibited lower PTSD and depression symptoms at baseline than the high and increasing use classes; these symptoms greatly increased at week 8 and declined at week 12. Participants who already use alcohol and cannabis exhibited greater PTSD and depression symptoms at baseline that increased at week 8 with a decrease in symptoms at week 12.

Our findings suggest that alcohol and cannabis use trajectories are associated with the intensity of posttrauma psychopathology. These findings could potentially inform the timing of therapeutic strategies.

To describe the genomic analysis and epidemiologic response related to a slow and prolonged methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) outbreak.

Prospective observational study.

Neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

We conducted an epidemiologic investigation of a NICU MRSA outbreak involving serial baby and staff screening to identify opportunities for decolonization. Whole-genome sequencing was performed on MRSA isolates.

A NICU with excellent hand hygiene compliance and longstanding minimal healthcare-associated infections experienced an MRSA outbreak involving 15 babies and 6 healthcare personnel (HCP). In total, 12 cases occurred slowly over a 1-year period (mean, 30.7 days apart) followed by 3 additional cases 7 months later. Multiple progressive infection prevention interventions were implemented, including contact precautions and cohorting of MRSA-positive babies, hand hygiene observers, enhanced environmental cleaning, screening of babies and staff, and decolonization of carriers. Only decolonization of HCP found to be persistent carriers of MRSA was successful in stopping transmission and ending the outbreak. Genomic analyses identified bidirectional transmission between babies and HCP during the outbreak.

In comparison to fast outbreaks, outbreaks that are “slow and sustained” may be more common to units with strong existing infection prevention practices such that a series of breaches have to align to result in a case. We identified a slow outbreak that persisted among staff and babies and was only stopped by identifying and decolonizing persistent MRSA carriage among staff. A repeated decolonization regimen was successful in allowing previously persistent carriers to safely continue work duties.

Young people are most vulnerable to suicidal behaviours but least likely to seek help. A more elaborate study of the intrinsic and extrinsic correlates of suicidal ideation and behaviours particularly amid ongoing population-level stressors and the identification of less stigmatising markers in representative youth populations is essential.

Participants (n = 2540, aged 15–25) were consecutively recruited from an ongoing large-scale household-based epidemiological youth mental health study in Hong Kong between September 2019 and 2021. Lifetime and 12-month prevalence of suicidal ideation, plan, and attempt were assessed, alongside suicide-related rumination, hopelessness and neuroticism, personal and population-level stressors, family functioning, cognitive ability, lifetime non-suicidal self-harm, 12-month major depressive disorder (MDD), and alcohol use.

The 12-month prevalence of suicidal ideation, ideation-only (no plan or attempt), plan, and attempt was 20.0, 15.4, 4.6, and 1.3%, respectively. Importantly, multivariable logistic regression findings revealed that suicide-related rumination was the only factor associated with all four suicidal outcomes (all p < 0.01). Among those with suicidal ideation (two-stage approach), intrinsic factors, including suicide-related rumination, poorer cognitive ability, and 12-month MDE, were specifically associated with suicide plan, while extrinsic factors, including coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) stressors, poorer family functioning, and personal life stressors, as well as non-suicidal self-harm, were specifically associated with suicide attempt.

Suicide-related rumination, population-level COVID-19 stressors, and poorer family functioning may be important less-stigmatising markers for youth suicidal risks. The respective roles played by not only intrinsic but also extrinsic factors in suicide plan and attempt using a two-stage approach should be considered in future preventative intervention work.

Racial and ethnic groups in the USA differ in the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Recent research however has not observed consistent racial/ethnic differences in posttraumatic stress in the early aftermath of trauma, suggesting that such differences in chronic PTSD rates may be related to differences in recovery over time.

As part of the multisite, longitudinal AURORA study, we investigated racial/ethnic differences in PTSD and related outcomes within 3 months after trauma. Participants (n = 930) were recruited from emergency departments across the USA and provided periodic (2 weeks, 8 weeks, and 3 months after trauma) self-report assessments of PTSD, depression, dissociation, anxiety, and resilience. Linear models were completed to investigate racial/ethnic differences in posttraumatic dysfunction with subsequent follow-up models assessing potential effects of prior life stressors.

Racial/ethnic groups did not differ in symptoms over time; however, Black participants showed reduced posttraumatic depression and anxiety symptoms overall compared to Hispanic participants and White participants. Racial/ethnic differences were not attenuated after accounting for differences in sociodemographic factors. However, racial/ethnic differences in depression and anxiety were no longer significant after accounting for greater prior trauma exposure and childhood emotional abuse in White participants.

The present findings suggest prior differences in previous trauma exposure partially mediate the observed racial/ethnic differences in posttraumatic depression and anxiety symptoms following a recent trauma. Our findings further demonstrate that racial/ethnic groups show similar rates of symptom recovery over time. Future work utilizing longer time-scale data is needed to elucidate potential racial/ethnic differences in long-term symptom trajectories.

The risk of antipsychotic-associated cardiovascular and metabolic events may differ among countries, and limited real-world evidence has been available comparing the corresponding risks among children and young adults. We, therefore, evaluated the risks of cardiovascular and metabolic events in children and young adults receiving antipsychotics.

We conducted a multinational self-controlled case series (SCCS) study and included patients aged 6–30 years old who had both exposure to antipsychotics and study outcomes from four nationwide databases of Taiwan (2004–2012), Korea (2010–2016), Hong Kong (2001–2014) and the UK (1997–2016) that covers a total of approximately 100 million individuals. We investigated three antipsychotics exposure windows (i.e., 90 days pre-exposure, 1–30 days, 30–90 days and 90 + days of exposure). The outcomes were cardiovascular events (stroke, ischaemic heart disease and acute myocardial infarction), or metabolic events (hypertension, type 2 diabetes mellitus and dyslipidaemia).

We included a total of 48 515 individuals in the SCCS analysis. We found an increased risk of metabolic events only in the risk window with more than 90-day exposure, with a pooled IRR of 1.29 (95% CI 1.20–1.38). The pooled IRR was 0.98 (0.90–1.06) for 1–30 days and 0.88 (0.76–1.02) for 31–90 days. We found no association in any exposure window for cardiovascular events. The pooled IRR was 1.86 (0.74–4.64) for 1–30 days, 1.35 (0.74–2.47) for 31–90 days and 1.29 (0.98–1.70) for 90 + days.

Long-term exposure to antipsychotics was associated with an increased risk of metabolic events but did not trigger cardiovascular events in children and young adults.

Brief measurements of the subjective experience of stress with good predictive capability are important in a range of community mental health and research settings. The potential for large-scale implementation of such a measure for screening may facilitate early risk detection and intervention opportunities. Few such measures however have been developed and validated in epidemiological and longitudinal community samples. We designed a new single-item measure of the subjective level of stress (SLS-1) and tested its validity and ability to predict long-term mental health outcomes of up to 12 months through two separate studies.

We first examined the content and face validity of the SLS-1 with a panel consisting of mental health experts and laypersons. Two studies were conducted to examine its validity and predictive utility. In study 1, we tested the convergent and divergent validity as well as incremental validity of the SLS-1 in a large epidemiological sample of young people in Hong Kong (n = 1445). In study 2, in a consecutively recruited longitudinal community sample of young people (n = 258), we first performed the same procedures as in study 1 to ensure replicability of the findings. We then examined in this longitudinal sample the utility of the SLS-1 in predicting long-term depressive, anxiety and stress outcomes assessed at 3 months and 6 months (n = 182) and at 12 months (n = 84).

The SLS-1 demonstrated good content and face validity. Findings from the two studies showed that SLS-1 was moderately to strongly correlated with a range of mental health outcomes, including depressive, anxiety, stress and distress symptoms. We also demonstrated its ability to explain the variance explained in symptoms beyond other known personal and psychological factors. Using the longitudinal sample in study 2, we further showed the significant predictive capability of the SLS-1 for long-term symptom outcomes for up to 12 months even when accounting for demographic characteristics.

The findings altogether support the validity and predictive utility of the SLS-1 as a brief measure of stress with strong indications of both concurrent and long-term mental health outcomes. Given the value of brief measures of mental health risks at a population level, the SLS-1 may have potential for use as an early screening tool to inform early preventative intervention work.

Bipolar disorder is associated with premature mortality, but evidence is mostly derived from Western countries. There has been no research evaluating shortened lifespan in bipolar disorder using life-years lost (LYLs), which is a recently developed mortality metric taking into account illness onset for life expectancy estimation. The current study aimed to examine the extent of premature mortality in bipolar disorder patients relative to the general population in Hong Kong (HK) in terms of standardised mortality ratio (SMR) and excess LYLs, and changes of mortality rate over time.

This population-based cohort study investigated excess mortality in 12 556 bipolar disorder patients between 2008 and 2018, by estimating all-cause and cause-specific SMRs, and LYLs. Trends in annual SMRs over the 11-year study period were assessed. Study data were retrieved from a territory-wide medical-record database of HK public healthcare services.

Patients had higher all-cause [SMR: 2.60 (95% CI: 2.45–2.76)], natural-cause [SMR: 1.90 (95% CI: 1.76–2.05)] and unnatural-cause [SMR: 8.63 (95% CI: 7.34–10.03)] mortality rates than the general population. Respiratory diseases, cardiovascular diseases and cancers accounted for the majority of deaths. Men and women with bipolar disorder had 6.78 (95% CI: 6.00–7.84) years and 7.35 (95% CI: 6.75–8.06) years of excess LYLs, respectively. The overall mortality gap remained similar over time, albeit slightly improved in men with bipolar disorder.

Bipolar disorder is associated with increased premature mortality and substantially reduced lifespan in a predominantly Chinese population, with excess deaths mainly attributed to natural causes. Persistent mortality gap underscores an urgent need for targeted interventions to improve physical health of patients with bipolar disorder.

To assess the Framingham risk score as a prognostic tool for idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss patients.

Medical records were reviewed for unilateral idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss patients between January 2010 and October 2017. The 10-year risk of developing cardiovascular disease was calculated. Patients were subdivided into groups: group 1 – Framingham risk score of less than 10 per cent (n = 28); group 2 – score of 10 to less than 20 per cent (n = 6); and group 3 – score of 20 per cent or higher (n = 5).

Initial pure tone average and Framingham risk score were not significantly associated (p = 0.32). Thirteen patients in group 1 recovered completely (46.4 per cent), but none in groups 2 and 3 showed complete recovery. Initial pure tone average and Framingham risk score were significantly associated in multivariable linear regression analysis (R2 = 0.36). The regression coefficient was 0.33 (p = 0.003) for initial pure tone average and −0.67 (p = 0.005) for Framingham risk score.

Framingham risk score may be useful in predicting outcomes for idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss patients, as those with a higher score showed poorer hearing recovery.

Compared to the general population, people with schizophrenia have a substantially higher risk of premature mortality which translates into a 10–15 year reduction in life expectancy. The aim of this investigation was to determine if symptoms (including aggression, hallucinations or delusions, and depression) or the environmental and functional status of people with schizophrenia contribute to the high mortality risk observed in this patient group.

We identified cases of schizophrenia, aged ≥15 years in a large secondary mental healthcare case register linked to national mortality tracing. We modelled the effect of specific symptoms, activities of daily living (ADLs), living conditions, occupational and recreational activities (Health of the Nation Outcome Scale [HoNOS] subscales) on all-cause mortality over a 4-year observation period (2007-10) using Cox regression.

We identified 4270 schizophrenia cases (170 deaths) in the observation period. After controlling for a broad range of covariates, mortality was not significantly associated with hallucinations and delusions or overactive-aggressive behaviour, but was associated with subclinical depression (adjusted HR 1.5; 95% CI 1.1-2.2) and ADL impairment (adjusted HR 1.8; 95% CI 1.2-2.9).

Severity of symptoms, such as delusions and hallucinations, was less important in predicting mortality than subclinical depression and difficulties carrying out activities of daily living. The overall picture appears to be one where the highest all-cause mortality risk is in service users who are least visible to clinical teams.

With the widespread of atypical antipsychotics used among children and adolescents, the treatment effectiveness has been of great interest alongside with the efficacy and safety in this population. The study was designed to assess whether second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs) are associated with lower service costs in the real world. Factors associated with service costs were also examined.

The claim data (PIMC) of 1996-2008 from the National Insurance Plan of Taiwan was used. Patients aged less than 20 with an incident use of antipsychotics and last for 12 months during this period were included for analysis. Comparisons were made between 8 SGAs and 2 first-generation antipsychotics (FGAs). Changes in service costs were examined with 95% confidence interval. Multivariate regressions with propensity scores adjustment were performed to explore factors associated with psychiatric service costs.

A total of 343 treatment encounters were included and results showed no difference in psychiatric services costs in the SGAs group as the total service costs were offset to high antipsychotics costs of SGAs, though antiparkinsonian costs were not different between two groups. Factor positively associated with service costs were relapse (RR=4.0, p< 0.0001) and EPS incidence (RR=1.6, p< 0.008), while types of antipsychotics and diagnoses were not significant factors after adjusting for covariates.

Service costs were not different between FGAs and SGAs groups and medication costs were significantly higher in the SGAs group. Relapse and EPS incidence were factors of high costs among children and adolescents psychiatric patients treated with antipsychotics in Taiwan.

To assess the impact of a newly developed Central-Line Insertion Site Assessment (CLISA) score on the incidence of local inflammation or infection for CLABSI prevention.

A pre- and postintervention, quasi-experimental quality improvement study.

Adult inpatients with central venous catheters (CVCs) hospitalized in an intensive care unit or oncology ward at a large academic medical center.

We evaluated CLISA score impact on insertion site inflammation and infection (CLISA score of 2 or 3) incidence in the baseline period (June 2014–January 2015) and the intervention period (April 2015–October 2017) using interrupted times series and generalized linear mixed-effects multivariable analyses. These were run separately for days-to-line removal from identification of a CLISA score of 2 or 3. CLISA score interrater reliability and photo quiz results were evaluated.

Among 6,957 CVCs assessed 40,846 times, percentage of lines with CLISA score of 2 or 3 in the baseline and intervention periods decreased by 78.2% (from 22.0% to 4.7%), with a significant immediate decrease in the time-series analysis (P < .001). According to the multivariable regression, the intervention was associated with lower percentage of lines with a CLISA score of 2 or 3, after adjusting for age, gender, CVC body location, and hospital unit (odds ratio, 0.15; 95% confidence interval, 0.06–0.34; P < .001). According to the multivariate regression, days to removal of lines with CLISA score of 2 or 3 was 3.19 days faster after the intervention (P < .001). Also, line dwell time decreased 37.1% from a mean of 14 days (standard deviation [SD], 10.6) to 8.8 days (SD, 9.0) (P < .001). Device utilization ratios decreased 9% from 0.64 (SD, 0.08) to 0.58 (SD, 0.06) (P = .039).

The CLISA score creates a common language for assessing line infection risk and successfully promotes high compliance with best practices in timely line removal.

Abnormal effort-based decision-making represents a potential mechanism underlying motivational deficits (amotivation) in psychotic disorders. Previous research identified effort allocation impairment in chronic schizophrenia and focused mostly on physical effort modality. No study has investigated cognitive effort allocation in first-episode psychosis (FEP).

Cognitive effort allocation was examined in 40 FEP patients and 44 demographically-matched healthy controls, using Cognitive Effort-Discounting (COGED) paradigm which quantified participants’ willingness to expend cognitive effort in terms of explicit, continuous discounting of monetary rewards based on parametrically-varied cognitive demands (levels N of N-back task). Relationship between reward-discounting and amotivation was investigated. Group differences in reward-magnitude and effort-cost sensitivity, and differential associations of these sensitivity indices with amotivation were explored.

Patients displayed significantly greater reward-discounting than controls. In particular, such discounting was most pronounced in patients with high levels of amotivation even when N-back performance and reward base amount were taken into consideration. Moreover, patients exhibited reduced reward-benefit sensitivity and effort-cost sensitivity relative to controls, and that decreased sensitivity to reward-benefit but not effort-cost was correlated with diminished motivation. Reward-discounting and sensitivity indices were generally unrelated to other symptom dimensions, antipsychotic dose and cognitive deficits.

This study provides the first evidence of cognitive effort-based decision-making impairment in FEP, and indicates that decreased effort expenditure is associated with amotivation. Our findings further suggest that abnormal effort allocation and amotivation might primarily be related to blunted reward valuation. Prospective research is required to clarify the utility of effort-based measures in predicting amotivation and functional outcome in FEP.

Better understanding of interplay among symptoms, cognition and functioning in first-episode psychosis (FEP) is crucial to promoting functional recovery. Network analysis is a promising data-driven approach to elucidating complex interactions among psychopathological variables in psychosis, but has not been applied in FEP.

This study employed network analysis to examine inter-relationships among a wide array of variables encompassing psychopathology, premorbid and onset characteristics, cognition, subjective quality-of-life and psychosocial functioning in 323 adult FEP patients in Hong Kong. Graphical Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) combined with extended Bayesian information criterion (BIC) model selection was used for network construction. Importance of individual nodes in a generated network was quantified by centrality analyses.

Our results showed that amotivation played the most central role and had the strongest associations with other variables in the network, as indexed by node strength. Amotivation and diminished expression displayed differential relationships with other nodes, supporting the validity of two-factor negative symptom structure. Psychosocial functioning was most strongly connected with amotivation and was weakly linked to several other variables. Within cognitive domain, digit span demonstrated the highest centrality and was connected with most of the other cognitive variables. Exploratory analysis revealed no significant gender differences in network structure and global strength.

Our results suggest the pivotal role of amotivation in psychopathology network of FEP and indicate its critical association with psychosocial functioning. Further research is required to verify the clinical significance of diminished motivation on functional outcome in the early course of psychotic illness.