Is Medical Cannabis Overly Promoted In Minnesota?

 

Karl Marx wrote his famous metaphor about religion being an opiate for the proletariat in 1843:

“Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”

He suggests in the next paragraph that the abolition of religion would rid people of the illusory happiness and it would be more consistent with the goal of real happiness for the people.  Marx’s formulation has not withstood the test of time. There is no more happiness now with widespread secularism than there was in Marx’s day.  Despite that fact - his metaphor survives and I thought about it quite a lot as I read through the Minnesota Medical Cannabis Program Report (MMCP) Anxiety Disorder Review.  The main difference of course is that cannabis is an equivalent metaphor only at the level of the idea of what medical cannabis can do.  When some writers suggest that religion can cause people to sleep and dream unrealistically, cannabis can physically do the same thing.  But it is promoted as doing many other things for many people – despite a profound lack of evidence.

The MMCP has been around for a number of years. I have taken the longstanding position that the medical cannabis concept is basically a way to legitimize cannabis and eventually get it legalized. I have also taken the position that physicians should not be involved in what is essentially a political maneuver.  The grandest aspect of that political maneuver has been the MMCP acting as a mini-FDA and coming up with their own indications for cannabis use. Initially, the idea was to use cannabis for the treatment of chronic pain and hospice care. I attended one of the early CME courses where most of the speakers were pain doctors and oncologists. Psychiatric input on these decisions has generally been minimal, despite the fact that psychiatric populations are at the highest risk from cannabis exposure and psychiatrists typically see most of the complications of cannabis.  The initiative to treat anxiety (in all forms) has not been approved by the MMCP and they state that was the reason for a more detailed look at the literature on cannabis as a treatment for anxiety and producing the report. 

Reading the report is an interesting exercise. It is not written very much from a scientific standpoint. They are very explicit about what they are considering as evidence.  For example they consider a literature search, a small panel of experts that does not really come to any consensus, and the experience of other states with medical cannabis and the indication of anxiety to be the basis for the report.  There are significant problems with all of those sources. 

 

The Research Matrix

At first the Research Matrix of papers included in the appendix looks impressive. There are 30 papers listing the reference, study type, total number of participants, dose and results.  Reading through the studies - some are single person case reports, some are reviews, and there are 15 studies listed as randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Looking at the RCTs there are probably one or two studies with an adequate number of participants to be adequately powered to show a statistical difference. Additional problems include the lack of an actual anxiety diagnosis.  In fact the diagnoses involved were frequently not anxiety related at all. Three observational studies at the end probably had the most merit and their results were equivocal. So the research studies really add nothing toward answering the question of whether medical cannabis should be used to treat anxiety and certainly nothing about the dose, delivery, or cannabis subtype.

Experience of Other States

Tables 1 summarizes the information about how other states have handled the question about medical cannabis and anxiety.  The states listed are Nevada, New Jersey, North Dakota and Pennsylvania.  In Nevada and North Dakota, the legislatures were petitioned to add anxiety (as DSM-5 Generalized Anxiety Disorder) to the medical cannabis formulary.  In New Jersey and Pennsylvania it was a commissioner decision. The Pennsylvania Secretary of Health was described as being “proactive” by suggesting that medical cannabis for anxiety was a “tool in the toolbox” and recommended duration of use, specific formulations, and avoidance in teenagers.  In all 4 states where cannabis was approved, anxiety quickly rose to the top or second most frequent indication for prescribing medical cannabis. None of the states collects any outcome data. 

What about other countries with more experience with cannabis like the Netherlands?  I contacted a colleague there who forwarded my questions to 2 other psychiatrists who were anxiety experts and doing active research in the area.  They responded that medical cannabis was not prescribed for anxiety and that there was a medical cannabis site for the Netherlands.  The site suggests that a CBD product is recommended. They had the same concerns about THC causing anxiety and psychosis.  A direct comparison of the indications for medical cannabis use comparing the Minnesota program to the Netherlands is included in the following table and linked directly to the respective web sites.

Medical Cannabis Qualifying Conditions

Minnesota   Cancer associated with severe/chronic pain, nausea or severe vomiting, or cachexia or severe wasting Glaucoma HIV/AIDS Tourette syndrome Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) Seizures, including those characteristic of epilepsy Severe and persistent muscle spasms, including those characteristic of multiple sclerosis Inflammatory bowel disease, including Crohn’s disease Terminal illness, with a probable life expectancy of less than one year* Intractable pain Post-traumatic stress disorder Autism spectrum disorder (must meet DSM-5) Obstructive sleep apnea Alzheimer's disease Chronic pain Sickle cell disease Chronic motor or vocal tic disorder

The Netherlands   Pain, muscle cramps and twitching in multiple sclerosis (MS) or spinal cord injury; nausea, loss of appetite, weight loss and weakness in cancer and AIDS; nausea and vomiting due to medication or radiation treatment for cancer, HIV infection and AIDS; long-lasting pain of a neurogenic nature (cause is in the nervous system) for example due to damage to a nerve pathway, phantom pain, facial pain or chronic pain that persists after shingles has healed; tics in Tourette's syndrome; treatment-resistant glaucoma

 Expert Consensus

In terms of the professional consensus, the participants were described as  3 psychiatrists, a pediatrician, a person in recovery, a primary care physician, and a marriage and family therapist. On a scale of recommendations, there was one vote for non-approval, one vote in favor of a limited pilot study and follow-up outcomes, one vote for neutral not opposed, three votes in favor of considering for generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and agoraphobia. No consideration is given to the experience of the physicians or the asymmetry of expertise. It appears to be a political approach to neutralizing the opinion of the group of physicians (psychiatrists) who essentially are left treating the complications of cannabis use disorder.  Those complications include acute mania or psychosis, anxiety and panic, chronic depression and amotivational syndromes, and significant cognitive problems.  Cannabis obscures whether the patient has a true psychiatric diagnosis or not.  It also destabilizes psychiatric disorders. That is the common theme I noted above.  This is really not expert consensus – it is a man-on-the street poll.

Apart from the very weak lines of evidence, some of the conclusions in this document are even worse.  There are basically 6 common themes:

1:  Protect the brain: There are longstanding concerns about the new timetable for brain development extending into the mid to late 20s. This is a peak period for drug experimentation and heavy use of alcohol and most substances. There appears to be consensus on this theme and I would agree.

2:  Safer alternative to benzodiazepines: the rationale here is much rockier.  The authors in this case cite the increase in benzodiazepine overdose deaths in the state of Minnesota, but the quality of this data is not clear.  I took a look at the data and contacted the Minnesota Department of Health about it – specifically if opioids were excluded as a primary cause along with fentanyl being sold as benzodiazepines. I was informed by an epidemiologist that a T42.4 code was present and the coding is not mutually exclusive. In other words, more drugs may be involved and fentanyl may have been involved. The death certificates and toxicology confirmations are dependent on the county medical examiner. The accuracy of the data is therefore in question. There are clearly ways to safely prescribe benzodiazepines.  Benzodiazepines are research proven alternatives for severe anxiety when conventional treatments have failed as a tertiary medication and cannabis is not.

In terms of addiction risk, the risk with cannabis is 8-12% overall and 17% for people who start using cannabis in their teens (1-6).  That compares with an addiction liability of about 10% with benzodiazepines (7).  Benzodiazepines are used by people who are taking multiple addicting drugs to amplify the effect, treat withdrawal symptoms, and treat the anxiety and insomnia that accompanies chronic substance use or opioid agonist therapy.  This population is often acquiring benzodiazepines from non-medical sources. There is no real good evidence that medical cannabis will replace non-medical use of benzodiazepines in that setting, since benzodiazepines are easily acquired from non-medical sources.

3:  Therapy is the standard:  Therapy is not the standard. The standard is whatever works for a particular practice setting.  Psychiatrists see people who have already seen a therapist and quite probably a primary care physician where their anxiety was diagnosed with a rating scale. That means they will have failed therapy and at least one or two medication trials. Psychiatrists are not going to start treatment by repeating ineffective therapies. In many cases, substance use including cannabis use is the main reason for the anxiety disorder in the first place.

4: Health Equity:  This was perhaps the most unlikely reason for cannabis use. To emphasize how far this document goes off the rails I am going to quote this section directly:

 “Known disparities exist in the level of care available for anxiety disorder among historically disadvantaged communities. Medical cannabis may offer these individuals the option for an alternative to current medications, however this view was not shared by all participants.” (p.15)

Are the authors of this document really suggesting that disadvantaged communities should settle for a substance that has been inadequately studied, has known severe medical and psychiatric side effects, and is associated with higher rates of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in these disadvantage communities (14) rather than providing them with standard care? That statement to me is quite unbelievable. It is the first time I have seen a recommendation to use a prescription substance to address a social problem.  It may happen by default – but if you really want to promote health equity equivalence evidence based treatments are the only acceptable standard.

When  "an alternative to current medications" is mentioned cost is not discussed as a factor. In my discussions with people who have received medical cannabis from the Minnesota dispensaries, high cost was often mentioned as a limiting factor. This current price list from one of the dispensing pharmacies shows that nearly all of their products are much more expensive than the generic antidepressants used to treat anxiety disorders.

5: Limited research:  Cannabis advocates point to the lack of research due to the fact that cannabis is a Schedule 1 compound. That means there is no known medical use and a high potential for abuse. Since certain compounds have been FDA approved for specific indications, I anticipate that these compounds will be rescheduled.  That is one of many hurdles in researching cannabis.  A few of the others would include the issue of subject selection (cannabis naïve or not), placebo controls, specific form (THC:CBD ratio), type of drug delivery, and a general methodology that would capture a good sample of persons with an anxiety disorder in adequate numbers for the trial.

6: Harm Reduction:  The authors suggest that medical cannabis could serve to limit exposure to other more harmful drugs obtained on the street to treat anxiety like benzodiazepines. There is no evidence that this would occur given the availability and preference for non-prescribed benzodiazepines.  The issue of polysubstance dependence is complex.  A significant number of opioid users also use benzodiazepines. Despite a black box warning about respiratory depression from using that combination, the FDA has been clear that the medications can be prescribed together. Further, a recent study suggests that retention in a methadone maintenance program was twice as likely if the patients received prescription benzodiazepines as opposed to non-prescription benzodiazepines (10).  No such data exists for cannabis.

In terms of substituting cannabis for benzodiazepines the only study I could find was a retrospective observational study of new patients in a cannabis clinic. Over the course of 2 months 30.1% were able to stop benzodiazepine use and at 6 months that number had increased to 45.2%.  These authors (11) conclude

“Without dependable safety data and evidence from randomized trials for this cohort, cannabis cannot be recommended as an alternative to benzodiazepine therapy.”

 The conclusion of this paper suggests the options of maintaining the status quo or no approval for anxiety, approve for a limited number of “subconditions” defined as specific anxiety disorders, or approve for anxiety disorders.  They list the pros and  cons associated with each approach but not much was added relative to the above discussion.  There are a few comments that merit further criticism. The risks of maintaining the status quo are seriously overstated.  From reviewing previous tabulated data from the MN Medical Cannabis program, it is unlikely that any meaningful real world data will be collected. It is not possible to collect non-randomized, uncontrolled data on a substance that is highly valued and reinforces its own use that has any meaning. The results will predictably be like the comments solicited by this program that are 96% favorable. There are similar speculative predictions of the direct consequences of not providing medical cannabis in terms of not seeking therapy if using cannabis off the street, suicides due to not tolerating SSRIs, and patient harm from “illicit use”. Similar speculation occurs throughout the remaining bullets points and there seems to be a strong pro-medical cannabis for anxiety disorders bias.

To summarize, I am not impressed with the Minnesota Medical Cannabis Program report on the use of medical cannabis for anxiety. It clashes with my 35 years of clinical experience where cannabis has been a major problem for the patients I treated in community mental health centers, clinics, substance use treatment centers, and hospitals. It suggests a great potential for a substance that has been around and used by man for over 7 millennia.  You would think with that history, man would have realized by now that it was a panacea for his most common mental health problem – anxiety. The report also ignores the commonest role of cannabis in American society and that is as an intoxicant and not a medication.  Physicians should not be prescribing intoxicants.  You don’t need a prescription to go to a liquor store and purchase alcoholic beverages. If the real goal is to get cannabis out to the masses, the option is legalization of cannabis not medical cannabis.

 

George Dawson, MD, DFAPA

 

References:

1:  Anthony JC, Warner LA, Kessler RC. Comparative epidemiology of dependence on tobacco, alcohol, controlled substances, and inhalants: Basic findings from the National Comorbidity Survey. Exp Clin Psychopharmacol. 1994;2(3):244-268. doi:10.1037/1064-1297.2.3.244

2:  Lopez-Quintero C, Pérez de los Cobos J, Hasin DS, et al. Probability and predictors of transition from first use to dependence on nicotine, alcohol, cannabis, and cocaine: results of the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC). Drug Alcohol Depend. 2011;115(1-2):120-130. doi:10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2010.11.004

3:  Anthony JC. The epidemiology of cannabis dependence. In: Roffman RA, Stephens RS, eds. Cannabis Dependence: Its Nature, Consequences and Treat:ment. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press; 2006:58-105.

4: NIDA. 2021, April 13. Is marijuana addictive?. Retrieved from https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/marijuana-addictive on 2021, September 13.

5:  Moss HB, Chen CM, Yi HY (2012). Measures of substance consumption among substance users, DSM-IV abusers, and those with DSM-IV dependence disorders in a nationally representative sample. J Stud Alcohol Drugs 73: 820–828

6:  Perkonigg A, Goodwin RD, Fiedler A, Behrendt S, Beesdo K, Lieb R et al (2008). The natural course of cannabis use, abuse and dependence during the first decades of life. Addiction 103: 439–449 discussion 450–451.

7: Becker WC, Fiellin DA, Desai RA. . Non-medical use, abuse and dependence on sedatives and tranquilizers among U.S. adults: psychiatric and socio-demographic correlates. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2007; 90 2-3: 280- 7. DOI: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2007.04.009 PubMed PMID: 17544227.

 

Harm Reduction:

8: Okusanya BO, Asaolu IO, Ehiri JE, Kimaru LJ, Okechukwu A, Rosales C. Medical cannabis for the reduction of opioid dosage in the treatment of non-cancer chronic pain: a systematic review. Syst Rev. 2020 Jul 28;9(1):167. doi: 10.1186/s13643-020-01425-3. PMID: 32723354; PMCID: PMC7388229.

9: Shover CL, Davis CS, Gordon SC, Humphreys K. Association between medical cannabis laws and opioid overdose mortality has reversed over time. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2019 Jun 25;116(26):12624-12626. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1903434116. Epub 2019 Jun 10. PMID: 31182592; PMCID: PMC6600903.

10: Eibl JK, Wilton AS, Franklyn AM, Kurdyak P, Marsh DC. Evaluating the Impact of Prescribed Versus Nonprescribed Benzodiazepine Use in Methadone Maintenance Therapy: Results From a Population-based Retrospective Cohort Study. J Addict Med. 2019 May/Jun;13(3):182-187. doi: 10.1097/ADM.0000000000000476. PMID: 30543543; PMCID: PMC6553513.

11: Purcell C, Davis A, Moolman N, Taylor SM. Reduction of Benzodiazepine Use in Patients Prescribed Medical Cannabis. Cannabis Cannabinoid Res. 2019 Sep 23;4(3):214-218. doi: 10.1089/can.2018.0020. PMID: 31559336; PMCID: PMC6757237.

 

Cannabis and Psychosis:

12: Kuepper R, van Os J, Lieb R, Wittchen H, Höfler M, Henquet C et al. Continued cannabis use and risk of incidence and persistence of psychotic symptoms: 10 year follow-up cohort study BMJ 2011; 342 :d738 doi:10.1136/bmj.d738

13: Murray RM, Mondelli V, Stilo SA, Trotta A, Sideli L, Ajnakina O, Ferraro L, Vassos E, Iyegbe C, Schoeler T, Bhattacharyya S, Marques TR, Dazzan P, Lopez-Morinigo J, Colizzi M, O'Connor J, Falcone MA, Quattrone D, Rodriguez V, Tripoli G, La Barbera D, La Cascia C, Alameda L, Trotta G, Morgan C, Gaughran F, David A, Di Forti M. The influence of risk factors on the onset and outcome of psychosis: What we learned from the GAP study. Schizophr Res. 2020 Nov;225:63-68. doi: 10.1016/j.schres.2020.01.011. Epub 2020 Feb 6. PMID: 32037203.

 

Cannabis Use and Suicide:

14:  Kelly LM, Drazdowski TK, Livingston NR, Zajac K. Demographic risk factors for co-occurring suicidality and cannabis use disorders: Findings from a nationally representative United States sample. Addict Behav. 2021 Nov;122:107047. doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2021.107047. Epub 2021 Jul 12. PMID: 34284313; PMCID: PMC8351371.

 

Cannabis Use and Life-Threatening Medical Problems:

15:  Ladha KS, Mistry N, Wijeysundera DN, Clarke H, Verma S, Hare GMT, Mazer CD. Recent cannabis use and myocardial infarction in young adults: a cross-sectional study. CMAJ. 2021 Sep 7;193(35):E1377-E1384. doi: 10.1503/cmaj.202392. PMID: 34493564.

16:  Parekh T, Pemmasani S, Desai R. Marijuana Use Among Young Adults (18-44 Years of Age) and Risk of Stroke: A Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey Analysis. Stroke. 2020 Jan;51(1):308-310. doi: 10.1161/STROKEAHA.119.027828. Epub 2019 Nov 11. PMID: 31707926.

17:  Shah S, Patel S, Paulraj S, Chaudhuri D. Association of Marijuana Use and Cardiovascular Disease: A Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Data Analysis of 133,706 US Adults. Am J Med. 2021 May;134(5):614-620.e1. doi: 10.1016/j.amjmed.2020.10.019. Epub 2020 Nov 9. PMID: 33181103.

18:  Desai R, Fong HK, Shah K, Kaur VP, Savani S, Gangani K, Damarlapally N, Goyal H. Rising Trends in Hospitalizations for Cardiovascular Events among Young Cannabis Users (18-39 Years) without Other Substance Abuse. Medicina (Kaunas). 2019 Aug 5;55(8):438. doi: 10.3390/medicina55080438. PMID: 31387198; PMCID: PMC6723728.

Pharmacokinetics and Adverse Effects of Cannabis:

19:  Schlienz NJ, Spindle TR, Cone EJ, Herrmann ES, Bigelow GE, Mitchell JM, Flegel R, LoDico C, Vandrey R. Pharmacodynamic dose effects of oral cannabis ingestion in healthy adults who infrequently use cannabis. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2020 Mar 21;211:107969. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2020.107969. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 32298998; PMCID: PMC8221366.

20: Spindle TR, Cone EJ, Goffi E, Weerts EM, Mitchell JM, Winecker RE, Bigelow GE, Flegel RR, Vandrey R. Pharmacodynamic effects of vaporized and oral cannabidiol (CBD) and vaporized CBD-dominant cannabis in infrequent cannabis users. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2020 Jun 1;211:107937. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2020.107937. Epub 2020 Apr 1. PMID: 32247649; PMCID: PMC7414803.

21:  Spindle TR, Martin EL, Grabenauer M, Woodward T, Milburn MA, Vandrey R. Assessment of cognitive and psychomotor impairment, subjective effects, and blood THC concentrations following acute administration of oral and vaporized cannabis. J Psychopharmacol. 2021 Jul;35(7):786-803. doi: 10.1177/02698811211021583. Epub 2021 May 28. PMID: 34049452. 

22:  Spindle TR, Cone EJ, Schlienz NJ, Mitchell JM, Bigelow GE, Flegel R, Hayes E, Vandrey R. Acute Effects of Smoked and Vaporized Cannabis in Healthy Adults Who Infrequently Use Cannabis: A Crossover Trial. JAMA Netw Open. 2018 Nov 2;1(7):e184841. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2018.4841. Erratum in: JAMA Netw Open. 2018 Dec 7;1(8):e187241. PMID: 30646391; PMCID: PMC6324384.

Vaping and Pulmonary Toxicology:

23:  Meehan-Atrash J, Rahman I. Cannabis Vaping: Existing and Emerging Modalities, Chemistry, and Pulmonary Toxicology. Chem Res Toxicol. 2021 Oct 8. doi: 10.1021/acs.chemrestox.1c00290. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 34622654.

24:  Tehrani MW, Newmeyer MN, Rule AM, Prasse C. Characterizing the Chemical Landscape in Commercial E-Cigarette Liquids and Aerosols by Liquid Chromatography-High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry. Chem Res Toxicol. 2021 Oct 5. doi: 10.1021/acs.chemrestox.1c00253. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 34610237.

25:  McDaniel C, Mallampati SR, Wise A. Metals in Cannabis Vaporizer Aerosols: Sources, Possible Mechanisms, and Exposure Profiles. Chem Res Toxicol. 2021 Oct 27. doi: 10.1021/acs.chemrestox.1c00230. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 34705462.

Epidemiology:

26: Lim CCW, Sun T, Leung J, et al. Prevalence of Adolescent Cannabis Vaping: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of US and Canadian Studies. JAMA Pediatr. Published online October 25, 2021. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2021.4102

Prevalence of cannabis vaping by adolescents has recently increased for lifetime use, use in the past 30 days and use in the past year.

Maternal Cannabis Use and Anxiety in Offspring:

Rompala G, Nomura Y, Hurd YL. Maternal cannabis use is associated with suppression of immune gene networks in placenta and increased anxiety phenotypes in offspring. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021 Nov 23;118(47):e2106115118. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2106115118. PMID: 34782458.

LaSalle JM. Placenta keeps the score of maternal cannabis use and child anxiety. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021 Nov 23;118(47):e2118394118. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2118394118. PMID: 34789581.

Graphics Credit: The graphic at the top of this post is from Shutterstock per their standard user agreement.

 

 

Suicide Risk After Hospital Discharge

Inpatient psychiatrists in the United States deal with three problems: suicide risk, aggression risk, and the inability care for oneself or impaired functional capacity. Those have always been the primary reasons why people are admitted to psychiatric hospitals. Over the past 30 years there has been a problem with business intruding on these medical indications. Businesses and or more specifically managed care companies eventually adopted a single codeword “dangerousness”. Dangerousness was supposed to encompass all three of the dimensions but eventually it developed a life of its own. As an example, I have been asked by insurance company reviewers “Where’s the dangerousness?” whenever they tried to throw one of my patients out of the hospital and onto the street. Science or medical principles were not involved, just the economics of being able to use a word to make money.

The reality of inpatient work is that the people there are very high-risk for suicide, aggression, and premature death from multiple causes. There was a study done in Germany about 20 years ago where they looked at all-cause mortality of people discharged from psychiatric units five years later and the number was very high. Post discharge suicide rates are much higher than suicide rates in the general population. These high numbers are expected because patients and inpatient units are selected for these traits that predispose to higher mortality and morbidity. The trends have been complicated by much shorter lengths of stay and bed limitations that means patients with severe mental illness may be refused admission even if they clearly need it. As example, since leaving the inpatient setting about 10 years ago, I have attempted to refer severely ill patients to psychiatric hospitals and they were turned away at the emergency department. In some cases they were turned away without being seen by a physician. There are probably a handful of psychiatrists in the United States who know the type of problem that needs to be treated that inpatient units and I am one of them.

That situation makes a recent study on risk of suicide after discharge from inpatient psychiatric care and interesting one. The study was done in Sweden. It encompassed the years 1973 to 2009. During that time there were 2,883,088 admissions and presumed discharges. 690,937 patients were discharged more than once. Most the discharges were men (57.6%). There were no explicit indications for admission. Patients were followed up and it was determined that there were 3695 suicides within 30 days of discharge. The authors calculated a suicide rate of 181/10,000.  The discharge diagnosis most associated with suicide with depression. They gave some rough estimates of the prevalence of disorders in this population: 34% alcohol use disorder, 15.5% had mood disorders and (bipolar disorder or depression) and 9.9% had schizophrenia. 

Looking at the results according to diagnosis depression was followed by reaction to crisis or what is probably called an adjustment disorder in the US, but any specific psychiatric disorder and elevated hazard ratio for suicide within the first 30 days of discharge relative to the diagnosis of alcohol use disorder. 

Suicide risk was also examined relative to recent suicidal behavior. The suicidal behavior was considered to be any deliberate self-harm less than 30 days prior to admission. That was noted to have a hazard ratio of 4.75. The diagnoses were re-examined in the context of deliberate self-harm prior to admission and the risks were significantly higher in schizophrenia (HR = 8.94) and other nonorganic psychosis (HR =6.82).  Interested readers are referred to the full text which is available free online for the specific details including hazard ratios and confidence intervals for those hazard ratios.

The main findings of this study include the association of relatively high risk at discharge for most diagnoses and much higher risk if a specific diagnostic category was associated with a self-harm event 30 days prior  to admission.  This confirms clinical risk assessments that are typically done and also the fact that this is a high-risk population.

The authors do state that they regarded principal diagnosis at discharge to be the best available information on the reason for admission. I contacted the corresponding author about this and he did confirm that the reasons for admission in Sweden are very similar to what they are in the United States and that is suicide risk, aggression risk, and ability to care for oneself - but those specific metrics were not listed in the paper. 

The authors speculate on why the suicide risk is high. They describe the slow recovery from depression and the clearing of psychomotor retardation prior to the resolution of depressogenic thinking.  In the US, psychiatrists are generally taught that psychomotor retardation may reduce the risk of acting on suicidal thoughts so that during treatment there may be a point where activation may put the person at risk for acting on unresolved suicidal thoughts. Given the characteristics of suicide particularly the impulsivity associated with it this progression of events has never been proven and remains highly speculative. The authors also had the interesting observation that crisis events or negative life events are expected to offer good prognosis but this study showed men with the diagnosis of reaction to a crisis were at high risk after discharge irrespective of whether there was any recent suicidal behavior.

The authors review the strengths and limitations of the study. The main strength is that it is a large-scale study with a significant number of suicides. They also point out how their study has similarities with other studies of suicide in hospitalized patients. On the limitation side most of the limitations had to do with a lack of granularity in the data. I pointed out the lack of specific admission indication in addition to diagnosis. In current databases there may be metrics having to do with the level of suicide or aggression risk. There are some large-scale studies being done on an outpatient basis looking at those metrics as well as supportive interventions based on risk scores.

The biological side was not discussed in this study even though the database used probably contained all of the admission and discharge medications. It would be interesting to know if certain pharmacological interventions were more or less associated with suicides after discharge. It would also be very useful to know if there were any protective factors from inpatient treatment that could be discerned from the data both from the standpoint of psychosocial interventions and biological interventions like electroconvulsive therapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation, or treatment with ketamine.

I have included a reference to another study of post discharge suicide rates done in a Medicare sample and with a slightly different methodology (2).  In this case the researchers looked at a population of 770,643 patients with mental disorders compared with a 1,090,551 patients in a cohort with no mental disorders and compared suicide rates in the first 90 days after discharge. They found suicide rates that were 10-20 times higher in the mental disorder cohort.  The non-mental disorder cohort had a rate that was lower than the baseline suicide rate in the US at the time (11.6 versus 14.2 per 100,00 person years).  Like the Swedish study rates were the highest for mood disorders. Comparing both of these studies would be an interesting seminar for residents or journal club for staff psychiatrists interested in different epidemiological approaches to the same clinical problem.  I have included two references by Chittaranjan Andrade, MD and encourage the use of his series on statistics and epidemiological concepts in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

From a clinical standpoint, the take-home message for clinicians is to make sure that deliberate self-harm prior to admission and the diagnosis are carefully explored. It is fairly common practice to consider adjustment disorders to be low risk in terms of brief hospital stays and discharge plans that do not include intensive outpatient treatment. This study suggests that at least some of those patients need more intensive intervention but there is no guidance on how to identify that group. The other high-risk groups of patients with psychosis that had deliberate self-harm prior to admission and any trained inpatient psychiatrist should admit those patients and treat them until there is clinical improvement that results in decreased risk.

My only concern about the current patient flow through emergency departments and onto psychiatric inpatient units is that many of these patients never get admitted and if they do they are discharged in a short period of time with the same symptoms that they presented with.  The inpatient environments in the US are also deteriorated to the point that they resemble correctional settings and patients want to leave as soon as possible.

These are not good ways to address the issue of post hospitalization suicide risk in a high risk population.

George Dawson, MD, DFAPA

Reference:

1:  Haglund A, Lysell H, Larsson H, Lichtenstein P, Runeson B. Suicide Immediately After Discharge From Psychiatric Inpatient Care: A Cohort Study of Nearly 2.9 Million Discharges. J Clin Psychiatry. 2019 Feb 12;80(2). pii: 18m12172. doi: 10.4088/JCP.18m12172. PubMed PMID: 30758922. (full text)

2: Olfson M, Wall M, Wang S, Crystal S, Liu SM, Gerhard T, Blanco C. Short-termSuicide Risk After Psychiatric Hospital Discharge. JAMA Psychiatry. 2016 Nov 1;73(11):1119-1126. doi: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2016.2035. PubMed PMID: 27654151. (full text)

3: Andrade C. Why odds ratios can be tricky statistics: the case of finasteride, dutasteride, and sexual dysfunction. J Clin Psychiatry.2018;79(6): 18f12641. Link

4: Andrade, Chittaranjan. Drug interactions in the treatment of depression in patients with ischemic heart disease. The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 73.12 (2012): 1475-1477.

More On Conscious States and Suicide

“Did you remember all of that noise I was making in the bathroom?  I was trying to kill myself.”

The person I was talking with had been discharged from a hospital about two months ago.  He was admitted there because of an exacerbation of a mood disorder and possible psychosis. The main reason he was admitted from the emergency department was suicidal ideation. That is the most frequent indication for hospital admissions in the United States. Even then who does and does not get admitted is controversial. It is common for persons to be sent to the emergency department by their families or outlying facilities where there are legitimate concerns only have the patient deny the problem and get released from the hospital. There is a lot of drama involved because one of the decision points is whether or not suicidal person needs to be placed on legal hold and treated on an involuntary basis. This frequently leads to speculation about the true nature of what a person says or alternatively accepting "no suicidal thinking" at face value and dismissing them. 

I think it also highlights the significant limitations of interviewing people and adequately    understanding their conscious state. The best example is the rating scale approach which is really somebody’s idea of what the optimal interview questions might be to assess a suicidal person. The commonest depression checklist is the PHQ-9 (1).  Item 9 in the PHQ 9 involves suicidal thinking and the rating is as follows:

Thoughts that you would be better off dead, or of hurting yourself	0 – not at all
	1 - several days
	2 - more than half the days
	3 - nearly every day

Depending on where you practice clinics have different conventions about this item and how it needs to be approached. Any elevation usually leads to a more intensive assessment of suicide potential. That typically involves a clinical interview but also could involve the use of another checklist. It should be apparent that this item is a focused on the approximate frequency of suicidal thinking. It assumes that the patient can actually report this and that it is more significant than other metrics like the intensity of thinking. For example, is one extremely intense thought about suicide more significant and potentially lethal than thinking about it frequently but easily dismissing those thoughts? This is one of the basic limitations of any assessment of the person’s mental status. Clinical interviews and rating scales are very crude approximations of a person’s conscious state. Assessing someone’s potential for suicide is a clear example. There is also the notion of rating scales being “quantitative” measures and they are not. There is an entire field of research suggesting that these “measurements” lead to greater precision and I doubt that is true.

All of that brings me back to the first patient. Here he is somewhat annoyed that nobody seemed to realize on an inpatient psychiatric unit that he was trying to kill himself. At the same time he made every effort to conceal that fact while he was hospitalized. He only disclosed it months later after his mood and associated cognitive processes had stabilized. It reminds me that I also have talked with many people who were intent on killing themselves and presented themselves as being very well so that they could be discharged and attempt suicide. The popular literature is full of stories about people who reassured their families or appeared to be doing well only to carry out a planned suicide attempt. This is clearly a high risk conscious state that can escape detection and lead to very high risk attempt or death.

“The gun just went off.”

I talked to many survivors of gunshot wounds that were self-inflicted. In large trauma hospitals, psychiatrists are consulted by surgery services who have successfully treated the patient. The psychiatrists job is to assess the patient and determine whether or not they need further acute psychiatric care or they can be discharged home. I generally ask for a very detailed description of what happened including the type of firearm used, the time of day, the associated thought process, the overall psychiatric context, and the sequence of events just before the firearm goes off. The common explanation that I have heard is a recollection that someone was pointing a loaded gun at themselves and that at some point it "just went off". There is no recollection of a conscious effort to pull the trigger. Numerous secondary analyses are possible including that it is just a rationalization against self-harm or an attempt to avert psychiatric hospitalization. In keeping with the theme of this post - there is also a possibility that the patient’s conscious state at the time of the suicide attempt was so chaotic that it cannot be recalled or reconstructed. There is precedent for that state and that is delusional depression. If the patient is clearly delusional all of the usual deterrents like fear of dying, intense dislike of pain, not wanting to harm the family, and religious beliefs no longer apply. The standard risk analysis for suicidal thinking no longer applies. There is a delusional process with associated emotions that lead to very high suicide risk.

“I felt real bad about what happened 50 years ago and so I stabbed myself.”

The delusional process can be very subtle. Psychiatrists are typically taught to pay attention to hallucinations and classic forms of delusions. Those types of psychotic thinking are fairly obvious. In the case of depression and some forms of psychosis the delusion can be very subtle. An example might be feeling guilty about a trivial event from a long time ago. Everyone can relate to that kind of guilt or embarrassment but what if it is suddenly linked to the idea that death is preferred to the emotional burden of that trivial event. People in their 50s, 60s, and 70s could focus on events that happened when they were in middle school or high school that might start to disrupt their lives and lead to suicidal thinking. In the example given a severe suicide attempt occurred by self-inflicted stab wound over a trivial incident happening in the eighth grade. The patient was unable to recognize that this was a delusional thought process until the depression and psychosis had been adequately treated.

These examples all highlight how a person can go from being no risk at all for suicidal behavior to being at very high risk. The changes are subtle and they might not be apparent to the person experiencing them. The risk analysis models that are used are all linear and additive and do not capture the conscious states of people who become suicidal. The limited consciousness theories that we currently have would suggest that it is really not possible to experience the conscious state of another person in the transition to high suicide risk is probably a good example.  Even the best possible definition of empathy fails if the person cannot recognize the state that the psychiatrist is trying to reflect back to them. 

Time domain is another perspective on the fluidity of conscious states both in the case of suicidal thinking and substance use disorders. It is common for a person to describe themselves as becoming a person that they never wanted to be associated with both substance use disorders and suicidal thinking.  They are able to see those patterns in retrospect but not at the times they occur.   

It may be apparent that suicidal thinking can be a transition from a questionable belief to certainty. I listed a few of these beliefs in a previous post. A common one is “people would be better off without me”. In the early stages most people can examine that thought and conclude that it is at least partially false based on their relationships to the people in question and the assessment of their realistic value to those people. With time and continued emotional intensity any objective assessment of their value in relationships might diminish and disappear. At that point they are in a very high-risk state because they believe in the statement that “people would be better off without me”. Clinicians are often taught to ask about deterrence to suicidal ideation, but they are rarely taught to assess the degree of belief a person has in high-risk suicidal thinking.  There are non known ways to determine is a person who is delusional or quasi-delusional about suicidal thoughts is disclosing those thoughts or hiding them.

What can clinicians and patient do in these circumstances?  My previous posts suggests that an analysis of the thought patterns can be useful. I routinely review those ideas with people I see who have suicidal thoughts.  At some point the goal would be to see if talking about suicidal thoughts in this way would improve the level of resistance to these thoughts and make it less likely that people will act on them. I also believe that a public health message should discuss the same approach,  So far the only public health measure seems to be advice on calling suicide hotlines or crisis lines. 

I have had several people who I know as friends let me know that they have been able to analyze these thoughts on their own and come up solutions to contain these thoughts and get enough emotional distance from them to the point that they were no longer bothersome.  I know it can be done and encourage public health officials to take it to the next step.   

In closing, this post emphasizes a unique conscious state or states associated with suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. Nothing in this post should be construed as interview or treatment suggestions.  A more comprehensive understanding of  suicidal thinking and behavior requires more than a rating scale approach or risk factor analysis.

George Dawson, MD, DFAPA

References:

1.  PHQ-9 is copyrighted by Pfizer, Inc. Full rating scale is visible at many sites by searching on PHQ-9.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=PMID%3A+20219811

The Most Important Fact About Suicidal Thinking

I am going to keep this post brief and to the point.  This is advice that I routinely discuss with people who tell me that they have suicidal thoughts.  In most cases they are surprised about what I tell them.  This is a beginning to help people conceptualize suicidal thoughts and frame them in a way that they know what they mean and are confident that they can do something about them. For clinicians, it is also an opportunity to expand the diagnostic interview into a therapeutic intervention.  In too many cases, the clinician asks a lengthy series of questions for the diagnostic interview and in some cases and additional set of questions for an assessment of suicide risk or aggression risk.  At the end of that process the patient being questioned may be more emotional or feeling drained by the process while they wait for a decision about hospitalization or other treatment recommendations.  I have found it is best to have a discussion about suicidal thoughts and attempts right at the time they are being discussed in the diagnostic process.  I discuss the following point.

Suicidal thoughts are irrational thoughts and it is a normal reaction to experience emotional distress when thinking about them.  The best way to think about them is to see them for what they are and that is either a symptom of depression or an irrational thought process.

When people get suicidal thoughts they often attach other meanings to them that increases their emotional reaction to them and keeps the thoughts going.  Over the years some of the meanings that I have encountered include:

"I am in a hopeless situation and I would be better off dead".

"I am worthless to my family and they would be better off without me".

"I am not living up to my potential and I have let people down and it would be easier if I was dead."

"If I wasn't such a chicken I would kill myself"

"My friend who killed himself had the right idea and I should follow in his footsteps."

The general pattern is that the thoughts can get more and more complicated but they always come to the same irrational conclusion.

In order to interrupt them - it is important to recognize that they have no particular meaning and that they must be recognized as an irrational thought or a symptom of depression.  They have no meaning past that.  In my experience most people have not thought of them that way and that is why the discussion is so important.  When people see the point of the discussion and recognize the importance of the discussion it is often very therapeutic for them.  They recognize for example that the thoughts are transient and that they do not really want to die.  They can say that 99.9% of the time they would never seriously contemplate suicide.  They realize that they have gone to bed at night with suicidal thoughts and awakened in the morning without them.  In many cases they go to work and while focused on their job never experience a suicidal thought.  This discussion is a jumping off point where the clinician can discuss a number of ways to intervene in this thought pattern and reduce the frequency and intensity of the suicidal thoughts to the point that they are likely to fade away.

The clinician seeing the patient can develop a treatment plan based on this important discussion.  That includes addressing any associated diagnosis.  But the focus on suicidal ideation and safety needs to continue until the thoughts are no longer a problem.  In the case where the discussion is not very productive and suicidal thinking is very prominent a more acute intervention may be required to assist the person experiencing these symptoms.

Although the focus of this brief post has been on a typical clinical interaction I hope than anyone reading this post who is experiencing suicidal thoughts can use the advice or access help either through mental health crisis services or their health plan.  Remember the main message of this post: 

Suicidal thoughts are either a symptom of depression or the product of an irrational thought process.

And that means there is hope.  The best starting point is to talk with a clinician who has experience talking with people who have these thoughts and giving them advice on how to get rid of them.


George Dawson, MD, DFAPA

'Tis The Season - Seasonality and Suicide

From reference 1 - see for details. 

My first job as a staff psychiatrist was in a clinic in Superior, Wisconsin just across the harbor from Duluth, Minnesota where I lived.  For two of the years I worked there, a local television station would interview me about depression, suicide, and Christmas - at least that was their take on the story.  What would be better drama than a tumultuous family gathering, heated arguments, disappointment, and increasing depression?  That would be a great dramatic story if it was true, but it is not.  For two years, I battled with the reporters to tell the real story about seasonality and suicide, but in the end I lost.  Prior to the last interview, I went as far as saying: "Look - don't make the connection between Christmas and depression or suicide.  It really does not exist."  The first question I was asked: "Isn't it true that depression peaks at Christmas time?  Can you suggest a few reasons why that occurs?"   I fumbled along trying my best to explain what really happens.  All of these interviews are heavily edited down to a couple of sound bites.  The final version really did not have much to say about anything.

In the intervening 30 years, I have had a lot of time to think about the problem.  As a clinical psychiatrist one of the most frequent problems I encounter is suicide prevention.  Seasonality and suicide is never really mentioned very much in modern day suicide assessment or treatment.  The popular screening checklists don't have anything to say about seasons.  I have no doubt that clinically - suicidal thinking and suicide attempts correlate well with what is written in the literature.  The literature says that late spring is the peak season for suicides and that is what I have observed directly over 30 years of experience.  The main question is how this is relevant to the treatment and prevention of suicidal thinking and behavior.

In the referenced review, the authors do a reasonable job of summarizing what is known about the association of various environmental factors and suicide.  Studies of rare events are always affected by the ecological fallacy of inferring the behavior of individuals from membership in large groups.  We end up with extremely small numerators of people who have completed suicide relative to their membership in rather massive groups - like all Spring allergy suffers or in the case of biological psychiatrists the even larger group of everyone with seasonally low tryptophan levels.  The authors description of the effect of seasons on tryptophan levels and serotonin turnover is interesting but I disagree with their conclusion.  I do not think that much higher levels of serotonin turnover in bright sunlight negate tryptophan levels as an arbiter of suicidal behavior in the late spring.

We are currently approaching the end of April in southern Minnesota.  That last two days have been bitterly cold and wet.  Everybody is talking about how gloomy and depressing the weather is.  At this point in time, practically every friend, family member, and patient I have seen has had at least two upper respiratory tract infections (URI) of varying severity.  These viruses are generally flu-like illnesses (FLI) in that they produce all of the same symptoms except high fevers and can last up to 2 1/2 weeks.  In April and May, the population is in survival mode and we are looking for a break.  It doesn't necessarily have to be better weather, but that is the only practical way to be rid of the pestilence that is associated with winter.  The authors in the review look at cytokine and immune modulated mechanisms but they are highly speculative.  Not enough is known about the specific environment that suicidal people have experienced.  In the USA for example, not everybody at a certain latitude will see reduced sunlight and epidemic exposure to URIs.  At some point technology may allow widespread sampling and reconstruction of the true environment.  In the mean time studying specific work or school environments may be a more productive research approach.  

Seeing patients who tell me that they are getting more depressed and experiencing suicidal thoughts this time of the year makes me more vigilant.  After seeing most patients with these problems, I run the conversation back in my head a few more times than usual.  I am trying to see if I may have missed anything.  It is my version of the preemptive psychological autopsy - to prevent the necessity of a real one.  Psychotic depression can be very subtle and  people with that particular problem can be difficult to establish a working alliance with.  They may also have suicide attempts by highly lethal means.  The most important part of the conversation is giving them hope and having a plan to access emergency services.  But even before that I caution them that the progression to a state where they consider suicide is a sequence of events that needs to be recognized and interrupted at the earliest possible point.  All of that discussion is necessary in addition to pharmacotherapy.  One of the most important aspects of any mental health crisis is recognizing that you will be coming through on the other side.

That is as true about Spring as it is for anything else.


  
George Dawson, MD, DFAPA


References:  


1:  Woo J-M, Okusaga O, Postolache TT. Seasonality of Suicidal Behavior. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2012;9(2):531-547. doi:10.3390/ijerph9020531.

Figure at the top of this page is from reference 1 - an open access article. Reprinted here per
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) license. Original graph is unaltered.


2:  Hankoff LD. Suicide and attempted suicide. in Handbook of Affective of Disorders. Eugene S. Paykel (ed). The Guilford Press. New York. 1982 pages 417-428.

"Durkheim's study of the seasonality of suicide helped to confirm his impression of social factors on suicide.  ..... From the months of January through June there was a progressive increase in the rate of suicide and from June onward a progressive decrease."  p. 418

Does Learned Helplessness Explain The Suicidal Thoughts Of Medical Students?

The headlines are everywhere.  Medical students have a significant prevalence of suicidal thoughts and suicides.  The typical explanations are burnout and depression associated with the rigors of medical training.  Considering that medical training has always been rigorous the obvious questions include - is depression and suicidal thinking more prevalent now and if that is true - why?

The research offers little hard data.  There are no consistent longitudinal studies that use the same methodology to look at the issue of suicidal thoughts or suicide attempts in medical students.  The studies are generally cross sectional using diverse methodologies and involving different cultures (1).  The prevalence of suicidal thoughts varied from 11.2 to 14% for a given year.  The prevalence of lifetime suicide attempts ranged from 1.4 to 6.2%.  Some studies have determined suicide rates for male (15.6/100,000) and female medical students (18.9/100,000).  This studied showed no difference between suicide rates in men compared with the general population but higher rates for women.  Most studies do not look at comparison with rates  in the general population.

There is no evidence that I am aware of that medical training has become more rigorous or stressful than it used to be.  In my early training days, I saw residents in particular subjected to training schedules that I am guessing can no longer occur due to limitations on work hours.  Some of the best examples were surgical specialty rotations where second and third year residents hardly ever left the hospital.  Even as an intern in those days it was common to work 24 hours straight and then the next day until 5 PM or (total of 36 hours) every three or four days. Those schedules were exhausting but they were widely accepted until recent changes were made in the allowable hours for trainees.

The volume of material covered in medical school combined with the poorly defined guidelines about what needed to be known to be a proficient physician is not the most efficient approach to study.  Comparing medicine to a rigorous undergraduate course of training illustrates the problem.  If I was taking Physical Chemistry as a chemistry undergraduate, I knew I had to read specifics sections of the text, know the lecture notes, and take the tests on the lecture notes and text.  In medical school, the connections are less clear.  You can read one (or more) texts and know the lecture notes, but the testing was often guess work and typically on a body of knowledge that was more fluid - it might not hold up from year to year.  That level of inefficiency keeps people studying far too long in order to take tests that in the long run mean a lot less.  

The typical way that depression and suicidal behavior in physicians and trainees is studied is to look at the prevalence of depression, suicidal ideation and suicide in these populations.  Those studies generally suggest that suicide as a preventable cause of death is one that physicians as a group are not good at self correcting (2).   The typical comparison is that physicians as a group are better than the public at large when it comes to smoking cessation and reduced risk for cardiovascular and pulmonary disease.  That has led some experts to hypothesize that unlike smoking, getting treatment for depression and suicidal thinking involves many barriers relative to other health care interventions. Physicians may be more concerned about confidentiality, stigma, and the potential impact on career than with standard health measures.  In some cases the issue of reporting and disciplinary action has been mentioned.  Expert opinion generally recommends education about depression and suicidal thinking in physicians and facilitating access to mental health care.  Screening trainees for depression has also been suggested.  Burnout has become a popular theory lately and efforts to put a number on burnout suggest very high rates in most medical specialties.  The relationship of burnout to depression and suicidal thinking is less clear.

As I looked at the problem over time, the most striking factor in medical practice has been the total loss of control by physicians.  Thirty years ago, all of the medical students and residents in training programs were exposed to strenuous training schedules, but they also saw physician models who could provide the latest scientific care and have a direct impact on the patient and the treatment environment in general.  Most medical students start out valuing direct patient contact time.  The ones who don't end up in fields where there is minimal patient contact.  The contrast today is striking.  Today students and residents as exposed to training environments that are under the strict control of business managers.  This management is frequently a direct obstacle to scientifically based care and a frequent obstacle to routine care.  What rational person is going to subject themselves to intensive and stressful training only to see that their professional futures are under the control of people who routinely interfere with care and who can waste physicians time to an incredible degree based on a whim?  To me this seems like a textbook example of the learned helplessness paradigm and observing it.

Learned helplessness is a research paradigm for depression.  In laboratory animals, it is observed when the animal is subjected to an inescapable aversive stimulus.  At some point the animal just stops responding (trying to escape).  That response deficit is associated with biological markers consistent with depression and it can be treated with some of the same pharmacological agents used to treat depression.  Rodent models of learned helplessness are considered screens for molecules that have potential antidepressant effects.  An  interesting variation of this effect is learned helplessness by proxy.  Animal studies show that fear conditioning can be learned by proxy (3,4).  There is a research literature on the intergenerational transmission of anxiety and depression (6).  These studies suggest that the learning effects, especially in environments where there is a significant amount of emotion, can be significant.  Less studied phenomena like identification with mentors are also in effect in these environments.  There are several linear crisis model of suicide that are generally based on a progression of risk factors.  In my experience suicide is a non-linear process that involves subtle changes in the conscious state.  Stressful and emotional environments are more likely to be associated with these altered conscious states.

With physicians at all levels of training there are several factors that make it very difficult to escape a real or imagined failure in pursuing a career in medicine.  The debt factor is significant (7). One of the ongoing justifications of physician salaries in the US is the high cost of medical training.  Walking away from that is an anxiety producing scenario and yet one study showed that 40-46% of medical students considered that due to excessive workload and exam stress (1).  The expectations of mentors, friends, and family is a variable consideration that can increase the thoughts of failure for men and women at this life stage.  Most physicians in training have some idea of what real medical practice will be like when they are finally ready to make that transition.  There used to be clear models in the form of the attending physicians encountered on rotations.  My recollection of these attendings were that they appeared to have normal and full lives, especially in the time they were not active in clinical rotations.

Today medical students and residents don't see practicing physicians with normal lives.  They don't see physicians coming in for one or two month rotations.  Now they see practicing physicians who rotate one week on and one week off all year long for the rest of their lives.  They see primary care fragmented between clinic staff and hospitalists.  In the case of psychiatric rotations, they generally see people hospitalized in settings where nobody wants to stay, nobody really gets much better, and readmission rates are very high.  Ruling all of this are case managers with no medical training - telling the attending physicians what to do.  That has got to be a shock that puts many medical students off of the idea of a career in medicine even before they get started.  It gives them the message that they did not really need to go to medical school when their decision making is dictated by business managers.  It also gives them the message that they are a cog in business-of-medicine machine and cannot expect much personal contact with patients or medical treatment based on that relationship.  Finally - they notice the science of medicine that they were immersed in has suddenly become relative to the next great idea of the head administrator.  Whatever that business idea is - suddenly all of the physicians in the organization are doing it whether it is scientific or relevant.

Concerns about suicide prevention are always a legitimate endeavor, irrespective of the quality of the epidemiological evidence.  As physicians we have an obligation to recognize when our colleagues are in crisis and try to help them.  There do appear to be significant barriers to medical trainees and physicians getting help and that should be widely recognized.  I fear that the deteriorated practice environment is not being given sufficient weight as an etiological factor.  What sense does it make to go through what is widely acknowledged as very stressful training, when in the end physicians are no longer allowed to practice as professionals?  What impact occurs when trainees observe that many physicians are  currently practicing like they did when they were residents - with no end in sight?  Learned helplessness has always been there - but now instead of  being limited to training it is a permanent dimension of medical practice.    

That sounds like a recipe for desperation to me.   It is time for the profession to acknowledge that professional control of the practice environment is necessary not only for the good of our patients but for our own well being as well.

And there is nothing wrong with that.



George Dawson, MD, DFAPA



References:

1: Rau T, Plener P, Kliemann A, Fegert JM, Allroggen M. Suicidality among medical students - a practical guide for staff members in medical schools. GMS Z Med Ausbild. 2013 Nov 15;30(4):Doc48. eCollection 2013. Review. PubMed PMID:24282451, (figures cited above are from numerous references in this paper).

2: Center C, Davis M, Detre T, Ford DE, Hansbrough W, Hendin H, Laszlo J, Litts DA, Mann J, Mansky PA, Michels R, Miles SH, Proujansky R, Reynolds CF 3rd, Silverman MM. Confronting depression and suicide in physicians: a consensus Statement. JAMA. 2003 Jun 18; 289 (23): 3161-6. Review. PubMed PMID: 12813122.

3: Ramaker MJ, Dulawa SC. Identifying fast-onset antidepressants using rodent models. Mol Psychiatry. 2017 Mar 21. doi: 10.1038/mp.2017.36. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 28322276.

4: Bruchey AK, Jones CE, Monfils MH. Fear conditioning by-proxy: social transmission of fear during memory retrieval. Behav Brain Res. 2010 Dec 6;214(1):80-4. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2010.04.047. Epub 2010 May 2. PubMed PMID: 20441779.

5: Jones CE, Riha PD, Gore AC, Monfils MH. Social transmission of Pavlovian fear: fear-conditioning by-proxy in related female rats. Anim Cogn. 2014 May;17(3):827-34. doi: 10.1007/s10071-013-0711-2. Epub 2013 Dec 6. PubMed PMID: 24310150; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3984423.

6: Nauta MH, Festen H, Reichart CG, Nolen WA, Stant AD, Bockting CL, van der Wee NJ, Beekman A, Doreleijers TA, Hartman CA, de Jong PJ, de Vries SO. Preventing mood and anxiety disorders in youth: a multi-centre RCT in the high risk offspring of depressed and anxious patients. BMC Psychiatry. 2012 Apr 17;12:31. doi: 10.1186/1471-244X-12-31. PubMed PMID: 22510426.

7: Priceonomics.  Which Graduate Degree Gets You Out of Debt the Fastest?  April 13, 2017.



Attribution:

Quotation of the song lyrics posted here for academic illustration only.  Song was released in 1994 and copyrighted by Virgin Records.  Use here does not imply endorsement by or affiliation with the artists or label and is strictly for non-commercial educational purposes.