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Screening for depression and anxiety in general practice

The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recently recommended that all adults in general practice be screened for major depressive disorder and that everyone aged 19-64 be screened for anxiety disorders, including disorders not common in general practice.12 This would involve administering depression and anxiety symptom questionnaires to all patients without a psychiatric diagnosis, classifying positive and negative results, providing comprehensive assessments to those with positive results, and discussing and implementing any indicated treatment.3Decisions to initiate screening programmes should be based on high quality evidence of sufficient benefits to justify the harms that might be experienced by those who are screened and the consumption of resources that would be unavailable for other healthcare services.4 An effective mental health screening programme would require that patients agree to be screened; receive a screening test; get an accurate diagnosis if they have a positive result; and can then access treatments they agree…

Gun Violence Affects More Than Half of US Adults

More than half of US adults or their family members have encountered gun violence: they’ve been threatened with a firearm; they’ve witnessed a shooting; or a relative has been killed by a gun, including by suicide, according to nationally representative poll of 1271 people. Black adults were about twice as likely as White adults to report having seen someone being shot or to have had a relative who was killed by a gun in the Kaiser Family Foundation survey.

Suicide in young people: screening, risk assessment, and intervention

Abstract: Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death among young people worldwide and the third leading cause of death among those in the US. This review outlines the epidemiology of suicide and suicidal behavior in young people. It discusses intersectionality as an emerging framework to guide research on prevention of suicide in young people and highlights several clinical and community settings that are prime targets for implementation of effective treatment programs and interventions aimed at rapidly reducing the suicide rate in young people. It provides an overview of current approaches to screening and assessment of suicide risk in young people and the commonly used screening tools and assessment measures. It discusses universal, selective, and indicated evidence based suicide focused interventions and highlights components of psychosocial interventions with the strongest evidence for reducing risk. Finally, the review discusses suicide prevention strategies in community settings and considers future research directions and questions challenging the field.