Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Bias in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Bipolar Disorder in Minorities A Medscape Psychiatry & Mental Health "Expert Interview" - "African Americans with bipolar disorder are more likely to carry the diagnosis of schizophrenia than their white counterparts. Why does this imbalance exist? How can you avoid misdiagnosing minorities? How does this lack of diagnostic precision affect therapy? On behalf of Medscape, Randall F. White, MD, interviewed Amy Kilbourne, PhD, MPH, Veterans Administration Healthcare System, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh." [Viewing Medscape resources requires registration, which is free].  
  

Schizophrenia in Women From Medscape coverage of the 2nd World Congress on Women's Mental Health - " Sex and gender differences in schizophrenia have been described for a long time, especially with respect to age at onset, symptomatology, and course of the disease. More recently, sex differences in brain morphology and function have been reported. Furthermore, there has been a growing interest in gender-specific psychosocial influences and gender-sensitive therapeutic approaches. Together, the presentations by several speakers during the 2nd World Congress on Women's Mental Health gave us a comprehensive overview of the evidence-based knowledge about sex and gender differences and the specifics of schizophrenic disorders in women. Biological as well as psychosocial differences between men and women were outlined, and the implications for diagnostic procedures as well as therapy (pharmacotherapy, psychotherapy, and social measurements) were discussed." [Viewing Medscape resources requires registration, which is free].  
  

Quebec mental health services networks: models and implementation Article in the International Journal of Integrated Care - "In the transformation of health care systems, the introduction of integrated service networks is considered to be one of the main solutions for enhancing efficiency. In the last few years, a wealth of literature has emerged on the topic of services integration. However, the question of how integrated service networks should be modelled to suit different implementation contexts has barely been touched. To fill that gap, this article presents four models for the organization of mental health integrated networks."  
  

Drug Abuse Warning Network, 2003: Area Profiles of Drug-Related Mortality Data from the SAMHSA DAWN project - "This is the first publication of mortality data from the new Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN). Virtually every feature of DAWN, except its name, changed in 2003. In this publication, we refer to "new DAWN" to emphasize these differences. The purpose of this publication is to profile the drug-related deaths reported to DAWN by participating medical examiners and coroners (ME/Cs) for 2003. Each metropolitan area or State is presented separately, with participating and non-participating jurisdictions clearly identified. No system-wide summaries are provided, either in the text or in tables. Our intent is to discourage aggregation of data across areas, because the mortality component of DAWN is not national in scope nor can it be used to derive national estimates. DAWN mortality data for 2003 are not comparable to those for any prior years. In fact, no comparisons of data from the "old" and "new" DAWN are possible. "