Tuesday, August 02, 2005

VA psychology conference advocates for new veterans' mental health APA Monitor story - " At the eighth annual Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Psychology Leadership Conference, April 29–30 in Dallas, VA psychologists and top VA and APA officials met to discuss ways to promote improved psychological services for veterans, including those who have served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Illustrating this year's conference theme, "Strong leadership in uncertain times," top officials including VA Deputy Secretary Gordon Mansfield and VA Under Secretary for Health Jonathan Perlin, MD, PhD--who received word while at the convention that the Senate confirmed him for a four-year term in the position--discussed mental health care's future at the VA..."  
  

Cambodian refugees feel stress decades later Reuters AlertNet story - "A majority of Cambodian refugees settled in the United States suffer from post-traumatic stress, deep depression or alcoholism decades after surviving their country's 1970s genocide, a study said on Tuesday. A survey of Cambodians who are representative of the 175,000 who have taken refuge in the United States found practically all had lingering effects from nearly starving to death and witnessing relatives and friends being murdered. An estimated 3 million died during the 1975-79 reign of the Khmer Rouge and in civil wars before and after. The prevalence of psychiatric illness found among Cambodian refugees is indicative of a larger crisis affecting the world's 42 million refugees, based on other reports published in this week's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, which focused on the subject of violence." See also the free JAMA abstract, the summary of articles on "Violence and Human Rights" in the current issue and the abstracts of other articles of note - Cognitive Therapy for the Prevention of Suicide Attempts, Psychiatric and Cognitive Effects of War in Former Yugoslavia: Association of Lack of Redress for Trauma and Posttraumatic Stress Reactions, Predisplacement and Postdisplacement Factors Associated With Mental Health of Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons: A Meta-analysis, and the free article, Adult Schizophrenia Following Famine.