Research News

Summaries of research findings that tell of a scientific need to "rethink psychiatry."

Canadian Who Killed Son While on Medication Joins Forces With U.S. Dad Who Killed...

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David Crespi is serving a life sentence following his 2006 slaying of his five-year-old twin girls while being treated with antidepressant medications. David Carmichael,...

Primary Care Practitioners May Mistake Irritability as Bipolar Disorder in Youth

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Family medicine and pediatric providers are less confident in their assessment of irritability in youth than psychiatric providers, which may lead to overdiagnosis of bipolar disorder.

Children’s Positive Responses to Antidepressants “Minimal” After Four Weeks

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Children's positive responses to SSRI antidepressant treatments for depression are even less significant than adult responses, and do not last beyond four weeks.

Antipsychotic Medications Are Causing Obsessive Compulsive Disorders

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Common second-generation antipsychotic medications are causing symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder to emerge in many people who previously only had schizophrenia symptoms, according to a...

The Need to Address Suicide in Prisons

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Rates of suicide in prison are significantly higher than in the general population.

Antidepressant Misinformation Promoted on Popular Websites

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A new study indicates that popular online resources do not accurately present the scientific evidence on the risks and benefits of antidepressants.

Tensions in Mental Health Care in China: An Interview with Zhiying Ma

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Anthropologist Zhiying Ma explores mental health care in China, including tensions between Western psychiatry and socially-oriented local frameworks.

Adderall Implicated in Michigan Murder Trial

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“This case does not make sense in the normal sense,” Assistant Prosecutor Doug Newton told jurors in the trial of Michael Hamilton for murder....

Statisticians: Current Policies Approve Ineffective Treatments

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Current standards for clinical trials rely on statistical methods that allow for ineffective treatments to gain approval.
Letter blocks spelling "CANCER" and spilled pills in various colors on a white background

Cancer Risk Higher for Those on Clozapine

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The antipsychotic clozapine, considered the “gold-standard” treatment for psychosis, was found to increase the risk of blood and lymph system cancers.

Community-Driven Healthcare for the Homeless Reduces Hospital Costs

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Direct access to care in safe locations is key in reducing healthcare costs and increasing quality of life for homeless populations.

Vitamin B6 Effective in Reducing Antipsychotic Induced Akathisia

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A recent RCT showed that vitamin B6 is as effective as propranolol for the treatment of akathisia.

Antidepressant Use Does Not Prevent Suicide, Study Finds

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A new study has found that antidepressants are ineffective for reducing suicide attempts. Researchers report that the risk of suicide is particularly high in the first month after starting an antidepressant.

Traditional South African Healers Use Connection in Suicide Prevention

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Study finds that traditional healers in South Africa, whose services are widely used by the country’s population, perform important suicide prevention work.

Improved Neural Development in Children Moved from Institutional Care

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Researchers from Harvard, Tulane, the University of Maryland and Boston Children's hospital compared MRI and EEG scans of 20 normally developing Romanian children with...

Parent Training as Effective for Childhood Anxiety as Therapy

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Yale study finds that training parents how to react to child behaviors is as effective at reducing anxiety as providing therapy to the child.

Limitations Of Observational Studies Often Not Mentioned

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Mentions of studies' limitations are often buried deep in papers, and then mentions of their existence at all drop steadily thereafter in abstracts, press releases and news stories.

Evidence for Chile’s School-Based Mental Health Program

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Chile’s Skills for Life (SFL) program, the largest school-based psychosocial intervention program in the world, has demonstrated improved behavioral and academic outcomes for elementary students identified as “at risk.” A team of Chilean and U.S. researchers assessed the SFL program and will publish their results in the October issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP).

Family-Level Intervention for Schizophrenia

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Scores of daily function, employment, living situation, marital status and Global Assessment Scale in 979 persons diagnosed with schizophrenia and 1,509 of their relatives...

Lieberman Calls Whitaker “A Menace to Society”

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On Canada's popular national CBC radio program The Sunday Edition, psychiatrist Jeffrey Lieberman today described Robert Whitaker as "a menace to society."

Drug Detailing More Influential than FDA Approval

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FDA approvals are less influential on prescribing patterns than pharmaceutical sales marketers are, according to a study in Health Affairs. University of California and...

Facebook Groups Provide Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal Help When Doctors Don’t

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A new study looks at how online communities provide information and support for patients experiencing psychiatric drug withdrawal.

Antidepressant Use in Pregnancy Harms Child Development, Untreated Maternal Depression Shows Benefit

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In this new study, exposure to maternal anxiety in utero also harmed child development.

Replacing Pain with Pain: Hazards of Antidepressant Use for Chronic Pain Relief

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The paradox of relieving chronic pain with an antidepressant (and a new set of symptoms).