Key To Preventing Suicides : Male Desire To Be Strong And Protect Family

Masculine ideals of strength coupled with strong loved ones ties can assist men combat depression and overcome thoughts of suicide, according to University of British Columbia study.

In a research to appear in a forthcoming issue of Social Science and Medicine, UBC researchers John Oliffe and John Ogrodniczuk looked at how men's ideas of masculinity served or hindered them during bouts of severe depression. Their findings shed light on risk factors and prevention strategies for suicide.

The authors analyzed qualitative data from interviews with 38 guys between 24 and 50 years of age living in Vancouver and Prince George. The participants were self-identified or were formally diagnosed with depression.

The analyze suggests that males can finest counter suicidal thoughts by connecting with other people - namely intimate partners and loved ones - to regain some stability and to secure emotional help from other people.

"Support from friends and connecting to other things including spirituality is often the conduit to men seeking professional help to overcome the suicidal thoughts that can accompany severe depression" says lead author Oliffe, an associate professor in the School of Nursing.

Men die by suicide at least three times more than ladies even though it's ladies who are diagnosed at twice the rate of men for depression. Guys aged 20-29 have the highest rate of suicide. Statistics Canada reports that in 2003, the last year for which data is obtainable, more than 2,900 guys committed suicide.

The investigators found that most study participants expressed a strong commitment to their families and turned away from suicide for the hurt and trauma it would cause loved ones.

"Here, men's strong sense of masculine roles and responsibility as a provider and protector enables men to hold on while seeking support to regain some self-control," says Oliffe.

But Ogrodniczuk says the "stoic warrior" ideal also presents a downside that may lead guys to shut down and look for escape. In these situations, analyze participants chose to mute their feelings or disconnect from others. They usually overused alcohol and other drugs.

"Instead of finding respite from their emotional, mental and physical pain, self-harm emerged as the most common outcome of these actions," says Ogrodniczuk, an associate professor in the Dept. of Psychiatry

The analyze received assistance from the Canadian Institutes of Health Study (CIHR)

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Sexual Trauma Might Spark Mental Health Problems

Traumatic sexual incidents may cause serious mental health problems inside the years after the events, investigation at the University of Ulster has shown.

Using a distinctive investigative approach, researchers on the University's Psychology Research Institute examined the mental health of women who had visited rape crisis centres and it showed that sexual trauma plays a role in the development of psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia.

The propensity for trauma victims to move away from the region in which the traumatic incident took location thus disrupting their social support networks might also expose them to further mental health risks.

Outcomes with the analysis have recently been published within the prestigious journal Schizophrenia Bulletin.

The collaborative analyze saw the University of Ulster link up while using University of Southern Denmark to examine the information gathered from the Danish Civil Registration System (CRS), which is really a database of official details held on Danish citizens since 1968.

Professor Mark Shevlin, from Ulster's School of Psychology, said that using the CRS was a distinctive sort of investigation by no means undertaken in this area just before.

Professor Shevlin said: "Trauma research is fraught with methodological difficulties. The use of the CRS has allowed us to conduct case-control prospective studies in a very efficient way. Our most recent study identified an association between rape and subsequent diagnosis of a psychotic disorder over a 10-year period. This study would have been virtually impossible without the use of CRS data."

Professor Shevlin has been working alongside Professor Ask Elklit in the University of Southern Denmark, and he mentioned that the investigation has essential implications on treatment and developing therapies for those with schizophrenia.

Professor Elklit said: "The CRS provides researchers with information on a large number of variables related to physical and psychological health, education, employment, income, and housing. Collaborating with Ulster has provided us with the skills and expertise to link separate databases and conduct statistical analyses to help answer important psychological questions.

"For example, this has allowed us to identify social factors that increase the risk of rape or sexual victimization, and estimate the costs in terms of physical and psychological problems."

Professors Elklit and Shevlin are planning to continue and extend their CRS research. They have commenced a project that aims to model multiple traumatic childhood experiences and subsequent psychological and behavioural problems.

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Record Reveals Substance Abuse And Mental Illness Issue Information In Each US State

A new report providing state-by-state analyses of substance abuse and mental illness patterns reveals that despite broad variations amongst the states inside the sorts and levels of behavioral health problems they encounter -- every state suffers from these difficulties. As an example, amongst those aged 12 and older, Iowa had less than a single third the current illicit drug use rate of Rhode Island (4.1 % vs. 13.3 percent) - yet Iowa's population aged 12 and older was among the group of states with the nation's highest levels of individuals participating in binge drinking in the past month (27.2 %).

The statement gives talk about public health authorities and service providers with useful details on a wide range of substance use and mental illness issues affecting their states. The report is component of SAMHSA's strategic initiative on information, outcomes, and quality - an effort to inform policy makers and support providers on the nature and scope of behavioral health concerns.

Among the report's other notable findings:

• Cigarette use by adolescents has decreased in 35 states since 2002 -- no increases in cigarette smoking were observed in any state during this period.
• Minnesota had the nation's highest rate of past year dependence on, or abuse of, alcohol among those age 12 or older (10 percent), while Kentucky had the lowest (5.7 percent).
• Nine of the ten states having the highest levels of past month illicit drug use among persons age 12 or older also had the highest levels of past month marijuana use (in alphabetical order -- Alaska, Colorado, District of Columbia, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington).
• Thirteen states showed significant declines in past year cocaine use among persons age 12 or older from 2006-2007 (in alphabetical order -- Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming).
• Wyoming had the nation's highest rate of adolescents aged 12 to 17 experiencing a major depressive episode in the past year (10.0 percent) while Maryland had the lowest (7.0 percent).

"This report provides valuable insight into the exact nature and scope of the behavioral health problems affecting each state, and should help state public health authorities determine the most effective ways of addressing them," said SAMHSA Administrator Pamela S. Hyde, J.D. "These findings remind us that reducing the impact of substance abuse and mental illness is a national challenge and as we work to reform health care behavioral health services are part of the solution in every state."

The report was developed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration based on the 2007 and 2008 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). Using data drawn from interviews with 136,606 persons from throughout the country the report provides a state-by-state breakdown along 22 different measures of substance abuse and mental health problems including illicit drug use, binge drinking, alcohol and illicit drug dependence, tobacco use, and major depressive episode. The full report is available online at http://oas.samhsa.gov/2k8state/toc.cfm.

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Initial Study To Show That Highly Variable Sleep Schedules Predict Elevated Suicide Risk

Highly variable sleep schedules predict an elevated threat for suicide independent of depression in actively suicidal young adults, according to a investigation abstract presented Tuesday, June 8, 2010, in San Antonio, Texas, at SLEEP 2010, the 24th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC.

Results indicate that a sample of actively suicidal undergraduate students had a delayed mean bedtime of 2:08 a.m.; restricted total sleep time of 6.3 hours; and very variable sleep schedules, with time of mean sleep onset different by three several hours and time of sleep offset different by 2.8 several hours. Nonetheless, accounting for baseline depression severity, sleep variability was the only sleep measurement to individually predict increases in suicidal risk at one week and three weeks. Sleep irregularity also was the only sleep-related variable to predict greater mood lability, which in turn predicted elevated suicidal symptoms.

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