Matthew D. Lakoma

The Status of Medical Education in End-of-life Care: A National Report

OBJECTIVE: To assess the status of medical education in end-of-life care and identify opportunities for improvement.DESIGN: Telephone survey.SETTING: U.S. academic medical centers.PARTICIPANTS: National probability sample of 1,455 students, 296 residents, and 287 faculty (response rates 62%, 56%, and 41%, respectively) affiliated with a random sample of 62 accredited U.S. medical schools.MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Measurements assessed attitudes, quantity and quality of education, preparation to provide or teach care, and perceived value of care for dying patients. Ninety percent or more of respondents held positive views about physicians’ responsibility and ability to help dying patients. However, fewer than 18% of students and residents received formal end-of-life care education, 39% of students reported being unprepared to address patients’ fears, and nearly half felt unprepared to manage their feelings about patients’ deaths or help bereaved families. More than 40% of residents felt unprepared to teach end-of-life care. More than 40% of respondents reported that dying patients were not considered good teaching cases, and that meeting psychosocial needs of dying patients was not considered a core competency. Forty-nine percent of students had told patients about the existence of a life-threatening illness, but only half received feedback from residents or attendings; nearly all residents had talked with patients about wishes for end-of-life care, and 33% received no feedback.CONCLUSIONS: Students and residents in the United States feel unprepared to provide, and faculty and residents unprepared to teach, many key components of good care for the dying. Current educational practices and institutional culture in U.S. medical schools do not support adequate end-of-life care, and attention to both curricular and cultural change are needed to improve end-of-life care education.

Individual and Societal Effects of Mental Disorders on Earnings in the United States: Results From the National Comorbidity Survey Replication

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this report was to update previous estimates of the association between mental disorders and earnings. Current estimates for 2002 are based on data from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R). METHOD The NCS-R is a nationally representative survey of the U.S. household population that was administered from 2001 to 2003. Following the same basic approach as prior studies, with some modifications to improve model fitting, the authors predicted personal earnings in the 12 months before interview from information about 12-month and lifetime DSM-IV mental disorders among respondents ages 18-64, controlling for sociodemographic variables and substance use disorders. The authors used conventional demographic rate standardization methods to distinguish predictive effects of mental disorders on amount earned by persons with earnings from predictive effects on probability of having any earnings. RESULTS A DSM-IV serious mental illness in the preceding 12 months significantly predicted reduced earnings. Other 12-month and lifetime DSM-IV/CIDI mental disorders did not. Respondents with serious mental illness had 12-month earnings averaging

Prevalence and Perceived Health Associated with Insomnia Based on DSM-IV-TR; International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Tenth Revision; and Research Diagnostic Criteria/International Classification of Sleep Disorders, Second Edition Criteria: Results from the America Insomnia Survey

16,306 less than other respondents with the same values for control variables (

Lifetime co-morbidity of DSM-IV disorders in the US National Comorbidity Survey Replication Adolescent Supplement (NCS-A).

26,435 among men,

Childhood socio-economic status and the onset, persistence, and severity of DSM-IV mental disorders in a US national sample

9,302 among women), for a societal-level total of

Changes in antidepressant use by young people and suicidal behavior after FDA warnings and media coverage: quasi-experimental study

193.2 billion. Of this total, 75.4% was due to reduced earnings among mentally ill persons with any earnings (79.6% men, 69.6% women). The remaining 24.6% was due to reduced probability of having any earnings. CONCLUSIONS These results add to a growing body of evidence that mental disorders are associated with substantial societal-level impairments that should be taken into consideration when making decisions about the allocation of treatment and research resources.

Teaching and learning end-of-life care: evaluation of a faculty development program in palliative care.

BACKGROUND Although several diagnostic systems define insomnia, little is known about the implications of using one versus another of them. METHODS The America Insomnia Survey, an epidemiological survey of managed health care plan subscribers (n = 10,094), assessed insomnia with the Brief Insomnia Questionnaire, a clinically validated scale generating diagnoses according to DSM-IV-TR; International Statistical Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10); and Research Diagnostic Criteria/International Classification of Sleep Disorders, Second Edition (RDC/ICSD-2) criteria. Regression analysis examines associations of insomnia according to the different systems with summary 12-item Short-Form Health Survey scales of perceived health and health utility. RESULTS Insomnia prevalence estimates varied widely, from 22.1% for DSM-IV-TR to 3.9% for ICD-10 criteria. Although ICD insomnia was associated with significantly worse perceived health than DSM or RDC/ICSD insomnia, DSM-only cases also had significant decrements in perceived health. Because of its low prevalence, 66% of the population-level health disutility associated with overall insomnia and 84% of clinically relevant cases of overall insomnia were missed by ICD criteria. CONCLUSIONS Insomnia is highly prevalent and associated with substantial decrements in perceived health. Although ICD criteria define a narrower and more severe subset of cases than DSM criteria, the fact that most health disutility associated with insomnia is missed by ICD criteria, while RDC/ICSD-only cases do not have significant decrements in perceived health, supports use of the broader DSM criteria.

End-of-life care in the curriculum: a national study of medical education deans.

BACKGROUND Research on the structure of co-morbidity among common mental disorders has largely focused on current prevalence rather than on the development of co-morbidity. This report presents preliminary results of the latter type of analysis based on the US National Comorbidity Survey Replication Adolescent Supplement (NCS-A). METHOD A national survey was carried out of adolescent mental disorders. DSM-IV diagnoses were based on the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) administered to adolescents and questionnaires self-administered to parents. Factor analysis examined co-morbidity among 15 lifetime DSM-IV disorders. Discrete-time survival analysis was used to predict first onset of each disorder from information about prior history of the other 14 disorders. RESULTS Factor analysis found four factors representing fear, distress, behavior and substance disorders. Associations of temporally primary disorders with the subsequent onset of other disorders, dated using retrospective age-of-onset (AOO) reports, were almost entirely positive. Within-class associations (e.g. distress disorders predicting subsequent onset of other distress disorders) were more consistently significant (63.2%) than between-class associations (33.0%). Strength of associations decreased as co-morbidity among disorders increased. The percentage of lifetime disorders explained (in a predictive rather than a causal sense) by temporally prior disorders was in the range 3.7-6.9% for earliest-onset disorders [specific phobia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)] and much higher (23.1-64.3%) for later-onset disorders. Fear disorders were the strongest predictors of most other subsequent disorders. CONCLUSIONS Adolescent mental disorders are highly co-morbid. The strong associations of temporally primary fear disorders with many other later-onset disorders suggest that fear disorders might be promising targets for early interventions.

Recent Trends in Outpatient Antibiotic Use in Children

Although significant associations between childhood socio-economic status (SES) and adult mental disorders have been widely documented, SES has been defined using several different indicators often considered alone. Little research has examined the relative importance of these different indicators in accounting for the overall associations of childhood SES with adult outcomes. Nor has previous research distinguished associations of childhood SES with first onsets of mental disorders in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood from those with persistence of these disorders into adulthood in accounting for the overall associations between childhood SES and adult mental disorders. Disaggregated data of this sort are presented here for the associations of childhood SES with a wide range of adult DSM-IV mental disorders in the US National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R), a nationally-representative sample of 5692 adults. Childhood SES was assessed retrospectively with information about parental education and occupation and childhood family financial adversity. Associations of these indicators with first onset of 20 DSM-IV disorders that included anxiety, mood, behavioral, and substance disorders at different life-course stages (childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, and mid-later adulthood) and the persistence/severity of these disorders were examined using discrete-time survival analysis. Lifetime disorders and their ages-of-onset were assessed retrospectively with the WHO Composite International Diagnostic Interview. Different aspects of childhood SES predicted onset, persistence, and severity of mental disorders. Childhood financial hardship predicted onset of all classes of disorders at every life-course stage with odds-ratios (ORs) of 1.7-2.3. Childhood financial hardship was unrelated, in comparison, to disorder persistence or severity. Low parental education, although unrelated to disorder onset, significantly predicted disorder persistence and severity, whereas parental occupation was unrelated to onset, persistence, or severity. Some, but not all, of these associations were explained by other co-occurring childhood adversities. These specifications have important implications for mental health interventions targeting low-SES children.

Pneumococcal carriage and antibiotic resistance in young children before 13-valent conjugate vaccine.

Objective To investigate if the widely publicized warnings in 2003 from the US Food and Drug Administration about a possible increased risk of suicidality with antidepressant use in young people were associated with changes in antidepressant use, suicide attempts, and completed suicides among young people. Design Quasi-experimental study assessing changes in outcomes after the warnings, controlling for pre-existing trends. Setting Automated healthcare claims data (2000-10) derived from the virtual data warehouse of 11 health plans in the US Mental Health Research Network. Participants Study cohorts included adolescents (around 1.1 million), young adults (around 1.4 million), and adults (around 5 million). Main outcome measures Rates of antidepressant dispensings, psychotropic drug poisonings (a validated proxy for suicide attempts), and completed suicides. Results Trends in antidepressant use and poisonings changed abruptly after the warnings. In the second year after the warnings, relative changes in antidepressant use were −31.0% (95% confidence interval −33.0% to −29.0%) among adolescents, −24.3% (−25.4% to −23.2%) among young adults, and −14.5% (−16.0% to −12.9%) among adults. These reflected absolute reductions of 696, 1216, and 1621 dispensings per 100 000 people among adolescents, young adults, and adults, respectively. Simultaneously, there were significant, relative increases in psychotropic drug poisonings in adolescents (21.7%, 95% confidence interval 4.9% to 38.5%) and young adults (33.7%, 26.9% to 40.4%) but not among adults (5.2%, −6.5% to 16.9%). These reflected absolute increases of 2 and 4 poisonings per 100 000 people among adolescents and young adults, respectively (approximately 77 additional poisonings in our cohort of 2.5 million young people). Completed suicides did not change for any age group. Conclusions Safety warnings about antidepressants and widespread media coverage decreased antidepressant use, and there were simultaneous increases in suicide attempts among young people. It is essential to monitor and reduce possible unintended consequences of FDA warnings and media reporting.