A new mobile game app helps children who have experienced trauma by letting them use their tablets or smartphones to practice life skills they have learned in the therapist’s office. During the game, TF-CBT Triangle of Life, created by mental health professionals at Allegheny Health Network and students at the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie […]
Services delivery
Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder Checklist — Youth Version
Everybody grieves the death of a loved one, and the process helps most mourners adjust to their loss. “Charlie Brown was right,” said Christopher Layne, a psychologist and researcher at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. “There is good grief.” But for some people, bereavement becomes a problem in itself, prolonging […]
Development of a Composite Trauma Exposure Risk Index
The high burden of exposure to chronic life adversities and trauma is quite prevalent, but assessment of this risk burden is uncommon in primary care settings. This calls for a brief, multiple dimensional mental health risk screening tool in primary care settings. We aimed to develop such a screening tool named the University of California, […]
Initial Findings from a Novel School-Based Program, EMPATHY, Which May Help Reduce Depression and Suicidality in Youth
A program is helping strengthen the mental health of public school students. The EMPATHY program, created and implemented in 2013, shows after just three months of use in schools, the program significantly decreased anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts among the student population. Peter Silverstone, a professor in the University of Alberta’s Department of Psychiatry, is […]
SBIRT App for Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment for Substance Use
The SBIRT App for Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment for substance use provides users with detailed steps to complete an SBIRT intervention with patients or clients. The app is designed for use by physicians, other health workers, and mental health professionals and can be used with patients and clients 12 years and older. […]
Prognostic Significance of Depression in African Americans With Heart Failure
Depression seems to increase the risk of hospitalization and death in black heart failure patients, a new study finds. Researchers assessed depression symptoms — such as difficulty with concentration, a lack of energy and feelings of hopelessness or helplessness — in nearly 750 black patients with heart failure. About one-third of them had symptoms of […]