News by Subject Social & Behavior

According to the internationally most extensive population study concerning the health of asylum seekers, up to 40% of the adults who have sought asylum in Finland told that they are suffering from major depression and anxiety symptoms.

For some people, medication is an effective part of treatment for depression. However, when considering whether to prescribe antidepressant medication for older adults, healthcare providers must weigh the safety risks these medications pose against the often modest benefits they can provide compared to other options.

Overdoses and suicides were among the most common reasons for mothers dying within a year of giving birth in California, according to a new study from Michigan State University and the University of California, Merced.

Researchers say fears over smartphone 'addiction' are based on flawed evidence. Surveys are often used to understand how people use their smartphone, but these are poorly related to actual smartphone use when measured with an app. This means that existing evidence suggesting that screen time is 'addictive' cannot be used to justify any change of policy. High smartphone usage has been linked to anxiety and depression but there is insufficient evidence to support these conclusions.

Patterns of brain activation during reward anticipation may help identify people most at risk for developing bipolar spectrum disorders (BPSD), according to a study in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, published by Elsevier. Mania in people with BPSD is often accompanied by impulsivity, including impulsive responses to potential rewards. In the study, patterns of neural activation during a reward task predicted the severity of the mania symptom in young adults who have not yet developed the disorder.

The results of a large community-based study have shown that the probability of major depressive disorder in children and adolescents with high, low, or normal body mass index differs according to gender. Underweight boys and overweight girls have an increased risk of depression, according to the study published in Childhood Obesity.

A combination of elevated symptoms of depression along with modifications in a gene responsible for dopamine activity, important to the brain's pleasure and reward system, appear to influence an addiction to indoor tanning in young, white non-Hispanic women.

Viral videos of the detainment of undocumented immigrants in cages and police killings of unarmed citizens are two of the most pressing traumatic events facing adolescents of color. However, little is known about whether these online experiences are linked to mental health outcomes. This study examines the association between exposure to such events online and mental health in a sample of African American and Latinx adolescents.

Women taking lithium to treat their bipolar disorder frequently ask if breastfeeding while on the medication will harm their babies. Those fears are largely rooted in sparse studies that have not addressed critical factors, reports a new Northwestern Medicine systematic review.