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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.