Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Research Brief: "Receipt Of Employment Services Among Veterans Health Administration Users With Psychiatric Diagnoses", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This study found that about four percent (4.2%) of VHA users with psychiatric diagnoses accessed employment services in a given year. VHA patients with a psychiatric diagnosis of schizophrenia had higher odds of accessing employment services relative to VHA users with other psychiatric diagnoses, including PTSD, depression, and other anxiety disorders. In practice, veterans should be aware that receiving VHA employment services should not affect VA benefits and should discuss their medical and financial benefits with benefits advisors and other appropriate advisors. In policy, Policymakers could consider allocating funds to further study the efficacy and effectiveness of various employment services …

We'll See You Tomorrow, Devin N. Garnick

SURGE

On July 14th, 2015, Hannah climbed to the top of Half Dome, a stunning rock formation that rises thousands of feet above the valley floor at Yosemite National Park. She had talked about wanting to climb to the top of this breathtaking cliff for years and frequently mentioned that she had to tackle this feat “before she died.” I was amazed and proud to see photos of her impressive accomplishment, and wondered what she might achieve next. On July 21st, 2015, Hannah committed suicide. [excerpt]

Development Of A Technology-Based Behavioral Vaccine To Prevent Adolescent Depression: A Health System Integration Model, Benjamin W. Van Voorhees, Tracy Gladstone, Stephanie Cordel, Monika Marko-Holguin, William Beardslee, Sachiko Kuwabara, Mark Allan Kaplan, Joshua Fogel, Anne Diehl, Chris Hansen, Carl Bell

Publications and Research

Efforts to prevent depression have become a key health system priority. Currently, there is a high prevalence of depression among adolescents, and treatment has become costly due to the recurrence patterns of the illness, impairment among patients, and the complex factors needed for a treatment to be effective. Primary care may be the optimal location to identify those at risk by offering an Internet-based preventive intervention to reduce costs and improve outcomes. Few practical interventions have been developed. The models for Internet intervention development that have been put forward focus primarily on the Internet component rather than how the program …

Research Brief: "Military And Mental Health Correlates Of Unemployment In A National Sample Of Women Veterans", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This study found that unemployment among female veterans was independently associated with screening positive for depression, as well as several other factors related to military service and veteran status. In practice, caring for the mental health of female veterans might improve their employment prospects, and in addition, many unemployed female veterans expressed that civilian coworkers did not understand their military experience. In policy, the VA and other federal agencies might model programs to support unemployed female veterans after the Institute for Veterans and Military Families’ Veteran Women Igniting the Spirit of Entrepreneurship (V-WISE) program. Suggestions for future study include incorporating …

Research Brief: "Alcohol Use And Craving Among Veterans With Mental Health Disorders And Mild Traumatic Brain Injury", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This brief is about the relation between alcohol craving and mental health disorders among veterans, and how mental health disorders impact alcohol cravings. For policy and practices, the research shows that alcohol cravings and mental health disorders among veterans could be a sign for risk of alcohol use disorder. It also shows that the VA should assess veterans for alcohol use disorder, and also research more ties between mental health disorders and alcohol use. Suggestions for future research include conducting the study in a larger, more representative population, as well as involving families in measuring alcohol use/cravings to ensure less …

Drink Like A Lawyer: The Neuroscience Of Substance Use And Its Impact On Cognitive Wellness, Debra S. Austin

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Lawyers suffer from higher levels of anxiety and depression than the rest of the population, but most do not enter law school with these mental health issues. Disciplinary actions against attorneys involve substance abuse 50 to 75 percent of the time. However, neuroscience research has shown that both the brain and the genes enjoy the power of plasticity, which means that personal choices and environments shape the development of lawyers throughout their lives. Legal educators need a better understanding of what aspects or characteristics of legal education contribute to the decline in mental health of law students, lawyers, and judges, …

Sincerely, The Quiet Girl, Brianna Dipanni

SURGE

When I was younger, I used to think there was something horribly wrong with me, as if I had this mortal flaw. Some nights I used to lie awake in bed and just stare at the flickering red numbers of my bedside clock, wondering to myself when things would change. How long would it take to overcome my quiet phase? When will I finally be normal? [excerpt]

Stability Of Self-Referent Encoding Task Performance And Associations With Change In Depressive Symptoms From Early To Middle Childhood., Brandon L Goldstein, Elizabeth P Hayden, Daniel N Klein

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Depressed individuals exhibit memory biases on the self-referent encoding task (SRET), such that those with depression exhibit poorer recall of positive, and enhanced recall of negative, trait adjectives (referred to as positive and negative processing biases). However, it is unclear when SRET biases emerge, whether they are stable, and if biases predict, or are predicted by, depressive symptoms. To address this, a community sample of 434 children completed the SRET and a depressive symptoms measure at ages 6 and 9. Negative and positive processing exhibited low, but significant, stability. At ages 6 and 9, depressive symptoms correlated with higher negative, …

Is Burnout Separable From Depression In Cluster Analysis? A Longitudinal Study, Renzo Bianchi, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Eric Laurent

Publications and Research

Purpose: Whether burnout and depression represent distinct pathologies is unclear. The aim of this study was to examine whether burnout and depressive symptoms manifest themselves separately from each other or are so closely intertwined as to reflect the same phenomenon.

Methods: A two-wave longitudinal study involving 627 French schoolteachers (73 % female) was conducted. Burnout was assessed with the Maslach Burnout Inventory and depression with the 9-item depression module of the Patient Health Questionnaire.

Results: Burnout and depressive symptoms clustered both at baseline and follow-up. Cluster membership at time 1 (T1) predicted cases of burnout and depression at time 2 …

Fusion Analysis Of First Episode Depression: Where Brain Shape Deformations Meet Local Composition Of Tissue., Mahdi Ramezani, Purang Abolmaesumi, Amir Tahmasebi, Rachael Bosma, Ryan Tong, Tom Hollenstein, Kate Harkness, Ingrid Johnsrude

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Computational neuroanatomical techniques that are used to evaluate the structural correlates of disorders in the brain typically measure regional differences in gray matter or white matter, or measure regional differences in the deformation fields required to warp individual datasets to a standard space. Our aim in this study was to combine measurements of regional tissue composition and of deformations in order to characterize a particular brain disorder (here, major depressive disorder). We use structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) data from young adults in a first episode of depression, and from an age- and sex-matched group of non-depressed individuals, and create …

The Moderating Effect Of Resilience Factors On Bully Victimization And Subsequent Psychological Adjustment Problems Among Adolescent Girls, Alexandra Hayley Quinn

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Bully victimization is linked to poor psychological adjustment, low self-esteem, and social withdrawal in children and teens. However, little research to date has examined the unique experiences of adolescent girls, the specific contributions of various subtypes of bullying, and the utilization of comprehensive instruments to examine the constructs of psychological adjustment and bully victimization. Further, researchers studying these issues have called for more studies to examine buffering factors that may protect teen girls from the psychological insults associated with peer victimization. This study advances research in the field by utilizing standardized self-report measures to examine the relationship between bully victimization …

Burnout-Depression Overlap: A Review, Renzo Bianchi, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Eric Laurent

Publications and Research

Whether burnout is a form of depression or a distinct phenomenon is an object of controversy. The aim of the present article was to provide an up-to-date review of the literature dedicated to the question of burnout–depression overlap. A systematic literature search was carried out in PubMed, PsycINFO, and IngentaConnect. A total of 92 studies were identified as informing the issue of burnout–depression overlap. The current state of the art suggests that the distinction between burnout and depression is conceptually fragile. It is notably unclear how the state of burnout (i.e., the end stage …

Burnout Does Not Help Predict Depression In French Schoolteachers, Renzo Bianchi, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Eric Laurent

Publications and Research

Objectives: Burnout has been viewed as a phase in the development of depression. However, supportive research is scarce. We examined whether burnout predicted depression among French school teachers.

Methods: We conducted a 2-wave, 21-month study involving 627 teachers (73% female) working in French primary and secondary schools. Burnout was assessed with the Maslach Burnout Inventory and depression with the 9-item depression module of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9). The PHQ-9 grades depressive symptom severity and provides a provisional diagnosis of major depression. Depression was treated both as a continuous and categorical variable using linear and logistic regression analyses. We controlled …