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In an innovative justice diversion project, individuals with serious mental illness were tasked with restoring the landscape of community housing as part of their community-based competency restoration. Participants attended educational workshops, received hands-on training, visited a national forest, and were encouraged to take on leadership roles. After one year, participants had created and taken responsibility for maintaining a successful urban garden. Participants report that gardening has given them a purpose and the ability to create something beautiful, which positively impacts their mental health. Project collaborators also note that the low cost, broad benefits, and easy replicability of the intervention make it a promising new psychiatric treatment modality. To learn more, read the article at Psychiatric Services.

In a unique new study, Boston and Harvard University public health researchers recruited 105 TikTok mental health content creators with diverse professional backgrounds and lived experience to receive evidence-based mental health communication training. Creators received either digital toolkits or toolkits plus live virtual training sessions. While review of digital toolkits alone more significantly increased creators’ use of evidence-based themes in their content, both types of training combined led to greater visibility of evidence-based mental health content across TikTok overall. The project highlights the potential of public-academic collaborations to mitigate mental health misinformation with scalable impacts. To learn more, view the preprint here.

Research suggests that experiencing substance-induced psychosis increases the risk of developing a schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD), but less is known about substance use without psychosis. In a study including 10 million people, Canadian researchers found that individuals with an emergency department visit for substance-induced psychosis were 163 times more likely than the general population to develop a SSD within three years. However, visits for substance use without psychosis occurred more often and were associated with a higher absolute number of transitions to SSD. The findings emphasize the importance of early intervention for substance use concerns – with or without psychosis – to decrease risk of schizophrenia and related conditions. To learn more, see the study in JAMA.

A randomized clinical trial of 178 veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) found that written exposure therapy (WET) had similar effects in reducing symptoms as the traditionally used prolonged exposure therapy (PE). Veterans received either five to seven sessions of WET or eight to fifteen sessions of the lengthier PE treatment, and were assessed at baseline, 10, 20, and 30 weeks after the initial treatment session. Improvements in symptom severity from baseline to all later assessments were similar among Veterans receiving WET and PE, with the largest difference favoring WET at 10 weeks. Furthermore, veterans receiving WET were less likely to stop treatment, suggesting it may reduce barriers to engagement associated with other interventions. To learn more, read the article in JAMA.

The U.S. Federal Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first oral medication, Zurzuvae , for the treatment of postpartum depression (PPD). Onset of PPD can occur during the late stages of pregnancy or after childbirth. Previously, PDD medication was only available via IV injection from a health care provider. The effectiveness of Zurzuvae was tested against placebos in two distinct, randomized, double-blind studies for a period of 14 days. In both studies, patients taking Zurzuvae showed a more significant decrease in depressive symptoms at study conclusion, and four weeks after, compared to placebo groups. The approval goes a long way in improving accessibility of PPD treatment for the many individuals the condition affects each year. To learn more, read the news release from the FDA.

Patients with bipolar disorder experience cyclic episodes of mania and depression which makes symptom management challenging. Common treatment practices include antidepressants and mood stabilizers or antipsychotics. An international clinical trial study of 177 patients with Bipolar I in remission from a depressive episode were randomly assigned to continue antidepressant use for 52 weeks or taper antidepressant use after six weeks and begin taking a placebo at eight weeks. Patients continuing antidepressant use were significantly less likely to experience a depressive episode (17%) compared to those taking a placebo (40%). However, 12% experienced a manic episode compared to 6% in the placebo group. Further research is needed to better understand the maintenance of manic and depressive episodes in patients with bipolar disorder. To learn more, read the article in the New England Journal of Medicine.