Better Understanding of the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy (BUMP): protocol for a digital feasibility study in women from preconception to postpartum.

The Better Understanding the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy (BUMP) study is a longitudinal feasibility study aimed to gain a deeper understanding of the pre-pregnancy and pregnancy symptom experience using digital tools. The present paper describes the protocol for the BUMP study. Over 1000 participants are being recruited through a patient provider-platform and through other channels in the United States (US). Participants in a preconception cohort (BUMP-C) are followed for 6 months, or until conception, while participants in a pregnancy cohort (BUMP) are followed into their fourth trimester. Participants are provided with a smart ring, a smartwatch (BUMP only), and a smart scale (BUMP only) alongside cohort-specific study apps. Participant centric engagement strategies are used that aim to co-design the digital approach with participants while providing knowledge and support. The BUMP study is intended to lay the foundational work for a larger study to determine whether participant co-designed digital tools can be used to detect, track and return multimodal symptoms during the perinatal window to inform individual level symptom trajectories.

Predictors of mental health and academic outcomes in first-year university students: Identifying prevention and early-intervention targets.

BACKGROUND: Although there is growing interest in mental health problems in university students there is limited understanding of the scope of need and determinants to inform intervention efforts. AIMS: To longitudinally examine the extent and persistence of mental health symptoms and the importance of psychosocial and lifestyle factors for student mental health and academic outcomes. METHOD: Undergraduates at a Canadian university were invited to complete electronic surveys at entry and completion of their first year. The baseline survey measured important distal and proximal risk factors and the follow-up assessed mental health and well-being. Surveys were linked to academic grades. Multivariable models of risk factors and mental health and academic outcomes were fit and adjusted for confounders. RESULTS: In 1530 students surveyed at entry to university 28% and 33% screened positive for clinically significant depressive and anxiety symptoms respectively, which increased to 36% and 39% at the completion of first year. Over the academic year, 14% of students reported suicidal thoughts and 1.6% suicide attempts. Moreover, there was persistence and overlap in these mental health outcomes. Modifiable psychosocial and lifestyle factors at entry were associated with positive screens for mental health outcomes at completion of first year, while anxiety and depressive symptoms were associated with lower grades and university well-being. CONCLUSIONS: Clinically significant mental health symptoms are common and persistent among first-year university students and have a negative impact on academic performance and well-being. A comprehensive mental health strategy that includes a whole university approach to prevention and targeted early-intervention measures and associated research is justified.

Maximizing the use of social and behavioural information from secondary care mental health electronic health records.

PURPOSE: The contribution of social and behavioural factors in the development of mental health conditions and treatment effectiveness is widely supported, yet there are weak population level data sources on social and behavioural determinants of mental health. Enriching these data gaps will be crucial to accelerating precision medicine. Some have suggested the broader use of electronic health records (EHR) as a source of non-clinical determinants, although social and behavioural information are not systematically collected metrics in EHRs, internationally. OBJECTIVE: In this commentary, we highlight the nature and quality of key available structured and unstructured social and behavioural data using a case example of value counts from secondary mental health data available in the UK from the UK Clinical Record Interactive Search (CRIS) database; highlight the methodological challenges in the use of such data; and possible solutions and opportunities involving the use of natural language processing (NLP) of unstructured EHR text. CONCLUSIONS: Most structured non-clinical data fields within secondary care mental health EHR data have too much missing data for adequate use. The utility of other non-clinical fields reported semi-consistently (e.g., ethnicity and marital status) is entirely dependent on treating them appropriately in analyses, quantifying the many reasons behind missingness in consideration of selection biases. Advancements in NLP offer new opportunities in the exploitation of unstructured text from secondary care EHR data particularly given that clinical notes and attachments are available in large volumes of patients and are more routinely completed by clinicians. Tackling ways to re-use, harmonize, and improve our existing and future secondary care mental health data, leveraging advanced analytics such as NLP is worth the effort in an attempt to fill the data gap on social and behavioural contributors to mental health conditions and will be necessary to fulfill all of the domains needed to inform personalized interventions.

Exposure to maternal depressive symptoms in childhood and adolescent suicide-related thoughts and attempts: mediation by child psychiatric symptoms.

AIMS: The nature of the association between child psychiatric symptoms and adolescent suicide-related thoughts (SRT) and attempts (SA) remains unclear. Our objective was to assess whether child psychiatric symptoms from 6 to 10 years of age mediate the association between exposure to maternal depressive symptoms in childhood and offspring SRT and SA in adolescence. METHODS: A population-based cohort study was constructed by linking all eight cycles from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY), a nationally representative Canadian panel survey conducted from 1994 to 2009. Self-reported maternal depressive symptoms were measured when offspring were between 0 and 5 years. Maternal-reported child psychiatric symptoms and psychiatric comorbid symptoms were measured from 6 to 10 years, and offspring self-reported SRT and SA were measured between 11 and 19 years. Indirect effects, the effect proportion mediated and their corresponding bootstrapped 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated. RESULTS: Hyperactivity and inattention significantly mediated the association between maternal depressive symptoms in childhood and risk of both SRT and SA from 11 to 19 years, where approximately 60% (SRT 95% CI 23-94%; SA 95% CI 27-95%) of this association was explained by hyperactivity and inattention. Psychiatric comorbid symptoms also significantly mediated this relationship and accounted for 50% (95% CI 18-81%) of this association with SA. CONCLUSIONS: Targeting hyperactivity and inattention, and co-occurring psychiatric symptoms in offspring of depressed mothers could reduce risk of SRT, eventual SA and halt progression towards suicide. However, further understanding of comorbid psychiatric symptoms in childhood that most strongly predict adolescent SA is needed.

Exposure to parental psychopathology and offspring's risk of suicide-related thoughts and behaviours: a systematic review.

AIMS: The primary objective of this systematic review was to identify and synthesise analytic studies examining the association between exposure to parental psychopathology in childhood and the nature of subsequent suicide-related thoughts (SRT) and suicide-related behaviour (SRB) (severity of ideation, planned/unplanned attempts/lethality) and to describe the direction, and magnitude of associations. The secondary objective was to determine if the associations from the primary objective differ by the type(s) and timing of parental psychopathology, sex/gender of the parent and child and is mediated by child psychiatric symptoms and family functioning. METHODS: A systematic review was conducted using guidelines from the PRISMA statement. MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, psycINFO, Web of Science and grey literature sources were searched by two reviewers to March, 2017. Studies were included if they examined any parental psychopathology (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders criteria or equivalent) or SRT or SRB and offspring SRT or SRB occurring from birth <25 years of age. RESULTS: Out of 10 231 studies identified, 54 were included for review. Studies were clinically and methodologically heterogeneous with none at low risk of bias (ROB). Nine studies with moderate ROB indicated a significantly increased risk of offspring SRT, suicide attempts (SA) and suicide among those exposed to maternal SA and suicide in childhood or adolescence. In the remaining 45 studies with higher ROB this association persisted. Several studies (67%) did not confirm that the exposure occurred in the offspring's childhood or adolescence. Findings were suggestive of a mediating effect of offspring psychiatric symptoms, however, few studies examined mediation and effect modification of contextual variables. CONCLUSIONS: Offspring exposed to maternal SA are at an increased risk of these same behaviours early in life. Prospective attention to the types and timing of maternal and paternal psychopathology and the intermediate pathways to offspring SRT and SRB onset is needed and could have implications for informing modifiable targets for early intervention and prevention.

Efficacy and tolerability of lithium in treating acute mania in youth with bipolar disorder: protocol for a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Epidemiological, clinical, and high-risk studies have provided evidence that the peak period for onset of diagnosable episodes of mania and hypomania starts in mid-to-late adolescence. Moreover, clinically significant manic symptoms may occur even earlier, especially in children at familial risk. Lithium is the gold standard treatment for acute mania in adults, yet to our knowledge, there is no published systematic review assessing lithium treatment of mania in children or adolescents. This is a major gap in knowledge needed to inform clinical practice. AIM: As a working group within the ISBD Task Force on Lithium Treatment ( http://www.isbd.org/active-task-forces ), our aim is to complete a systematic review of the efficacy, tolerability, and acceptability of lithium compared with placebo and other active drugs in treating mania in children and adolescents diagnosed with bipolar disorder. METHODS: We will include double- or single-blind randomized controlled trials in patients aged less than 18 years. No restrictions will be made by study publication date or language. Several electronic databases will be searched along with secondary sources such as bibliographies and trial registry websites for published and unpublished studies. Response rates to lithium compared with placebo or other active drugs will be the primary efficacy outcome. Primary tolerability and acceptability outcomes will be rates of serious adverse events and dropouts, respectively. Secondary outcomes will include rates of remission, severity of manic symptoms at different time points, and incidence of specific adverse events. DISCUSSION: Findings from this systematic review are critically needed to inform clinical practice. We should not generalize findings from adult studies, as children and adolescents are undergoing accelerated physiological and brain development. Therefore, efficacy, tolerability, and acceptability of lithium treatment of acute mania in children compared to adults may be very different. This systematic review has been registered in PROSPERO (CRD42017055675).

Does lithium reduce acute suicidal ideation and behavior? A protocol for a randomized, placebo-controlled multicenter trial of lithium plus Treatment As Usual (TAU) in patients with suicidal major depressive episode.

BACKGROUND: Lithium has proven suicide preventing effects in the long-term treatment of patients with affective disorders. Clinical evidence from case reports indicate that this effect may occur early on at the beginning of lithium treatment. The impact of lithium treatment on acute suicidal thoughts and/or behavior has not been systematically studied in a controlled trial. The primary objective of this confirmatory study is to determine the association between lithium therapy and acute suicidal ideation and/or suicidal behavior in inpatients with a major depressive episode (MDE, unipolar and bipolar disorder according to DSM IV criteria). The specific aim is to test the hypothesis that lithium plus treatment as usual (TAU), compared to placebo plus TAU, results in a significantly greater decrease in suicidal ideation and/or behavior over 5 weeks in inpatients with MDE. METHODS/DESIGN: We initiated a randomized, placebo-controlled multicenter trial. Patients with the diagnosis of a moderate to severe depressive episode and suicidal thoughts and/or suicidal behavior measured with the Sheehan-Suicidality-Tracking Scale (S-STS) will be randomly allocated to add lithium or placebo to their treatment as usual. Change in the clinician administered S-STS from the initial to the final visit will be the primary outcome. DISCUSSION: There is an urgent need to identify treatments that will acutely decrease suicidal ideation and/or suicidal behavior. The results of this study will demonstrate whether lithium reduces suicidal ideation and behavior within the first 5 weeks of treatment. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02039479.