Mental health is still considered a silent crisis for many men. Numerous experts attribute this fact to the growing number of pressures placed on men in our contemporary society.
—Elwood Watson, PhD
TITLE: Lithium May Reduce Psych Hospitalizations for People w/ Bipolar
OR MAJOR DEPRESSIVE DISORDER—N=260
Thank you Dr. Pope.
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The American Psychiatric Association issued the following news release:
Lithium May Reduce Psychiatric Hospitalizations in People With Bipolar,
Major Depressive Disorder
Taking lithium may significantly reduce the risk of psychiatric
hospitalization for people who have major depressive disorder or bipolar
disorder, a study in the Journal of Affective Disorders has found.
Maurizio Pompili, M.D, Ph.D., of Sapienza University in Rome and
colleagues analyzed data from the health records of 260 adult patients
who had either major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder and had
been admitted to the psychiatric unit of Sant’Andrea University Hospital
in Rome between February 2019 and August 2020.
The researchers compared the patients’ psychiatric hospitalization rates
for the 12 months before they started taking lithium with their
hospitalization rates during the first 12 months of taking lithium.
In the 12 months before taking lithium, 40.4% of the patients were
hospitalized, whereas only 11.2% of patients were hospitalized while
taking the drug.
This represents a 3.62-fold reduction in hospitalization during lithium
treatment.
The risk of hospitalization did not differ significantly between
patients with major depressive disorder and patients with bipolar
disorder either before or during treatment with lithium, suggesting that
taking lithium similarly benefitted both groups of patients.
Pompili and colleagues wrote that this finding was “unexpected,” as
other studies have suggested that lithium is more effective in patients
with bipolar disorder than those with major depressive disorder.
The risk of hospitalization also did not differ significantly between
patients who took only lithium and patients who also took other
psychotropic medications, with the exception of patients who also took
antipsychotics: Patients who took an antipsychotic along with lithium
had 21.1 times the odds of being hospitalized than those who did not
take an antipsychotic.
“An association of co-treatment with an antipsychotic plus lithium among
patients who required hospitalization probably represents greater
illness severity,” the researchers wrote.
Gift from writer Sherman Alexie, a signed copy of his fine letterpress #book.
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This slim volume is a confessional collection of poems that explores mental disorder, regret for things left unsaid to parents, tribal identity, #love and questions to #God.