LinkBlog
USAHRQ: Choosing Antidepressants for Adults
USAHRQ: Antidepressant Medicines - A Guide for Adults With Depression
The top 10 drugs prescribed by American psychiatrists in 2006 (pdf)
Crying Shame - a Priory Group survey about stigma and mental illness in Britain (pdf)
blog roll
- Agoraphobia
- Anxiety 2 Calm
-
Anxious Living : An Exploration
into Social Anxiety - Dare to Dream
- Dear Tobacco
-
Dr. Deborah Serani's:
Psychological Perspectives - Fast Weight Loss?
- Finding the Confidence
- GNIF Brain Blogger
- Legacy of War
- Mental Health Minutes
- My Brain: My Friend, My Enemy
- My Wife Has Agoraphobia!
- Neurophilosophy
- Out of the silence - site for young people with mental illness
- PTSD Combat
- The Happiness Guy
- The Last Psychiatrist
- The Trouble With Spikol
-
WebMD: Anxiety and
Stress Management - We Worry: A Blog for the Anxious
recommended links
Depression Is Real Coalition
-
ABIL: Agoraphobics Building
Independant Lives -
Agoraphobia and Panic
Disorder Foundation -
Anxiety Disorders Association
of America - Anxiety Network Australia
- Anxiety-Panic.Com
- AnxietyZone
- Army Behavioral Health
- BrainPhysics - OCD
-
Canadian Network for Mood
and Anxiety Treatments - Children of Hoarders
- Choices in Mental Health (UK)
-
Dart Foundation: Gateway to PTSD
information -
David Baldwin's
Trauma Information Pages - EMDR Institute, Inc.
- EMDR Network Japan
- Fear of Flying course (free)
- Healthy Minds
- Information for People with Anxiety Disorders
- Internet Guide to REBT, CBT
- Living with a Brain Disorder
- Morita Therapy
- Mayo Clinic : Depression
- Mayo Clinic : GAD
- Mayo Clinic : OCD
- Mayo Clinic : Panic Attacks
- Mayo Clinic : PTSD
- Mayo Clinic : Social Anxiety
-
Medicines.org.uk - Anxiety &
Depression guides - Mind-Your-Mind Canada
- National Center for PTSD
-
National Institute of Mental
Health (NIMH) - No Such Thing As Crazy
- OCD Action, UK
- OCD Ireland
- Obsessive Compulsive Foundation
- Open Minds, Open Doors
- Out of the silence - site for young people with mental illness
- Paniccure.com
- Partners With PTSD
- Prescription Drug Information
- Psychiatric Service Dog Society
- PsychNews
-
Rational Emotive Behavior
Therapy (REBT) - Sane Australia
-
Shyness & Social Anxiety
Service of Australia -
Social Phobia/Social Anxiety
Association - Social Anxiety Support board
-
South African Depression &
Anxiety Group - Suicide Prevention Help
-
tAPir - the Anxiety Panic
internet resource -
The Panic Center (Free
CBT based programs) - The School of OCD
- UN-WHO Drug Trials Database
- U.S. Army Behavioral Health - PTSD
"just don't smoke"
Yul Brynner
- Menthol cigarettes harder to quit
- Secondhand smoke in cars serious threat to kid's health
- Starting smoking young increases addiction risk
-
Smoking doesn't slim girls;
stunts boys' growth - 40 reasons why you should quit smoking
- Pregnant smokers 'prime' their kids to smoke
- Smoking related coronary artery disease quickly reversed if young smokers quit
- Not ready to quit? Try cutting back
- Half smoking again within year of lung cancer surgery
- Cutting back 'compensation' increases toxin load per cigarette
- Tobacco companies upped nicotine level 11% since 1998
- Workplace passive smoke increases lung cancer risk
- Hooked by genes: The DNA sequences cigarette companies love
- Smoking causes long lasting changes to brain's bio chemistry
- Nicotine receptor stimulant trebles the odds of stopping smoking
- Bupropion, nortriptyline double chances of quitting
- Nicotine's powerful role in reinforcing smoking
- Pregnant smokers raise child's risk of stroke, heart attack
- Smoking linked to pancreatic cancer
- Neurobiology of Smokers' Cravings
- 'Low cancer risk' cigarettes as deadly as regular kind
- Quitting reduces lung cancer death risk by 70%
- Fetal nicotine exposure linked to teen attention problems
- Outdoor second-hand smoke exposure can harm
- Response to day's first cigarette predicts ease of quitting
- 'Healthy' children of smoking parents aren't really so healthy
- Children of smokers have up to five times higher levels of a nicotine toxin
- Smoking increases risk of dementia
- Smoking kills even after quitting
- Antenatal second hand smoke exposure increases child's psychological problems
- Smoking could kill 1 billion this century: WHO
- Just 1 cigarette can lead to nicotine addiction
- Smokers less likely to survive early stage lung cancer
- Smokeless tobacco delivers carcinogens more efficiently than cigarettes!
- Smoking permanently turns on genes that increase lung cancer susceptibility
- Secondhand smoke a health hazard for pets too
anti torture campaign
- Torture experts write APA policy
- [APA] still rocked by torture debate
- Petition for psychologists
- AMA president says APA "did not accurately represent our ethical guidelines"
- Psychologists Aiding Torturers
-
Annual conference endorses
APA's torture policy :( - Physicians for Human Rights call on Congress to vote No on Military Commissions Bill
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Torture is a Form of Trauma;
Trauma Causes PTSD - Psychoanalysts' association condemns torture use
- Humiliating, inhumane or degrading treatment IS torture
- Two American psychologists accused of war crimes. U.S. DoD investigating.
- DoD report proves psychologists central to POW/detainee abuse (pdf)
- 40 psychologists demand APA change policy on torture (pdf)
- Did the American Psychological Association turn a blind eye to torture for medicine precribing rights?
- Will psychologists still abet torture?
- Psychologist, Author Mary Pipher Returns APA Award Over Interrogation Policy
- Guantanamo Medical Role Likened to South Africa Under Apartheid
Deputy Army Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Lt. General John (Jeff) Kimmons, has stated that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through abusive interrogation methods in the last 5 years.
monument, Monmouth County
New Jersey.
Global survey finds mental health care needs largely going unmet
Mental disorders rank among the top ten disability causing illnesses - more than 37 percent of the disabled worldwide - with depression being the leading cause of disability among people ages 15 and older, according to the Global Burden of Disease and Risk Factors published in 2006. Yet, the world's mental health care needs are largely going unmet, especially in less developed nations but also in high-income countries, according to results from a new survey of 17 countries conducted as part of the World Health Organization's (WHO) World Mental Health Survey Initiative. The results of the initiative were published in The Lancet in September 2007.
"Good treatments are available for many mental disorders. Yet, the world continues to struggle with the very real challenge of providing these services to the people who most need them," said U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Director Thomas R. Insel. "The WHO survey unmistakably reinforces the urgency that we must do better."
Philip S. Wang, M.D., Dr.P.H., currently director of the NIMH Division of Services and Intervention Research, and colleagues analyzed data from face-to-face interviews on mental health service use with 84,848 adults across all economic spectrums in countries around the world. Respondents were asked about anxiety, post-traumatic stress, mood, and substance abuse disorders. They were also asked if they received any services in the past year for mental disorders; and if so, what types of services they had used, such as general medical professional, mental health professional, religious counselors or traditional healers.
The survey found that mental health service use varied significantly among the 17 countries. Overall, fewer people in less developed countries with mental disorders sought services compared with people in developed countries. In addition, the survey found that people in countries spending more of their gross national product (GDP) on health care used services more often. The U.S. population used services more than any other country, at 18 percent. By comparison, 11 percent of France's population used services. The lowest rate of services use was 1.6 percent in Nigeria.
In all countries surveyed, women were more likely than men to seek mental health services. Additional results of countries surveyed found that:- middle-aged people were more likely to receive services than those younger or older;
- people with more education were more likely to seek out services for mental problems; and
- married people were less likely to use mental health services than unmarried people
Most of those who sought care for mental disorders received help from the general medical sector (primary care doctors, nurses) rather than specialized mental health services (psychiatrists, psychologists), religious or community counselors, or complementary and alternative medicine providers (including traditional healers). Among those receiving services, a substantial number of survey respondents reported that they did not receive minimally adequate services. The survey defines minimally adequate services as at least eight visits to any service sector, or being in ongoing treatment at the time of the interview, or receiving a medication for at least one month with four or more visits to a medical professional over a 12-month period.
Inadequate services were most commonly found in low-income countries, but even in some high-income countries, people received inadequate services. For example, in the United States, only 18 percent received minimally adequate services-much lower than any other high-income country. The next lowest level of minimally adequate services in a high-income country was 32 percent, in Japan. France and Germany had the highest level of adequate services, at 43 percent each.
"Although people sought and used services more in the United States, most did not receive adequate care - evidence of a striking disconnect in the U.S. mental health care system," said Dr. Wang, who conducted the research while he was at Harvard University. "We need to help developing countries implement more effective mental health care services, but we also need to do a better job at home. The global mental health care situation appears dire," he concluded.
The study was supported by the US National Institute of Mental Health, the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation, the Pfizer Foundation, the US Public Health Service, the Fogarty International Center, the Pan American Health Organization, Eli Lilly and Company, Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical, Inc., GlaxoSmithKline, and Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Wang PS, Aguilar-Gaxiola S, Alonso J, el al. Use of mental health services for anxiety, mood, and substance disorders in 17 countries in the WHO world mental health surveys The Lancet 2007;370:841-850[Abstract | Full text] (Free registration required)