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Two COVID-19 antibody treatments, one developed by Regeneron and the other by Eli Lilly, show promise in the outpatient setting in results released on Oct. 28.

Regeneron, in a randomized, double-blind trial, is assessing the effect of adding its investigational antibody cocktail REGN-COV2 to usual standard of care in comparison with adding placebo to standard of care. A descriptive analysis from the first 275 patients was previously reported. The data described on Oct. 28, which involve an additional 524 patients, show that the trial met all of the first nine endpoints.

Regeneron announced prospective results from its phase 2/3 trial showing REGN-COV2 significantly reduced viral load and patient medical visits, which included hospitalizations, visits to an emergency department, visits for urgent care, and/or physician office/telemedicine visits.

Interest in the cocktail spiked after President Donald Trump extolled its benefits after it was used in his own COVID-19 treatment earlier in October.

Trump received the highest dose of the drug, 8 g, but, according to a Regeneron news release announcing the latest findings, “results showed no significant difference in virologic or clinical efficacy between the REGN-COV2 high dose (8 grams) and low dose (2.4 grams).”

The company described further results of the industry-funded study in the release: “On the primary endpoint, the average daily change in viral load through day 7 (mean time-weighted average change from baseline) in patients with high viral load (defined as greater than107 copies/mL) was a 0.68 log10 copies/mL greater reduction with REGN-COV2 compared to placebo (combined dose groups; P < .0001). There was a 1.08 log greater reduction with REGN-COV2 treatment by day 5, which corresponds to REGN-COV2 patients having, on average, a greater than 10-fold reduction in viral load, compared to placebo.”

The treatment appears to be most effective in patients most at risk, whether because of high viral load, ineffective baseline antibody immune response, or preexisting conditions, according to the researchers.

According to the press release, these results have not been peer reviewed but have been submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration, which is reviewing a potential emergency use authorization for the treatment in high-risk adults with mild to moderate COVID-19.

Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s treatment and vaccine program, contracted in July with Regeneron for up to 300,000 doses of its antibody cocktail.
 

Lilly treatment shows drop in hospitalizations, symptoms

Another treatment, also given in the outpatient setting, shows promise as well.

Patients recently diagnosed with mild to moderate COVID-19 who received Eli Lilly’s antibody treatment LY-CoV555 had fewer hospitalizations and symptoms compared with a group that received placebo, an interim analysis of a phase 2 trial indicates.

Peter Chen, MD, with the Department of Medicine, Women’s Guild Lung Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California, and colleagues found that the most profound effects were in the high-risk groups.

The interim findings of the BLAZE-1 study, which was funded by Eli Lilly, were published online October 28 in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers randomly assigned 452 patients to receive an intravenous infusion of LY-CoV555 in one of three doses (700 mg, 2800 mg, or 7000 mg) or placebo.

In the interim analysis, the researchers found that for the entire population, more than 99.97% of viral RNA was eliminated.

For patients who received the 2800-mg dose, the difference from placebo in the decrease from baseline was −0.53 (95% CI, −0.98 to −0.08; P = .02), for a log viral load that was lower by a factor of 3.4. Benefit over placebo was not significant with the other doses.

At day 29, according to the investigators, the percentage of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 was 1.6% (5 of 309 patients) in the treatment group compared with 6.3% (9 of 143 patients) in the placebo group.

Data indicate that the safety profile was similar whether patients received the active treatment or placebo.

“If these results are confirmed in additional analyses in this trial, LY-CoV555 could become a useful treatment for emergency use in patients with recently diagnosed Covid-19,” the authors write.

Deborah Fuller, PhD, professor in the Department of Microbiology at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, told Medscape Medical News the findings are «exciting» but only part of the treatment solution.

“What’s remarkable about these two studies and others I’ve seen,” she said, “is how consistent they are in terms of the window of time they will be effective, and that’s because they are just targeting the virus itself. They do not have an effect on the inflammation unless they stop the replication early enough.”

The treatments are effective when they are given near the time of diagnosis, she pointed out.

“Once the virus has started that inflammatory cascade in your body, then that train has left the station and you have to deal with the inflammation,” Fuller said.

She says future treatments will likely have to include both the antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties, and physicians will have to assess what’s best, given the stage of the the patient’s disease.

The trial of REGN-COV2 is funded by Regeneron. The BLAZE-1 study is funded by Eli Lilly. Many of the authors have financial ties to Eli Lilly. Fuller has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

This article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Two COVID-19 antibody treatments, one developed by Regeneron and the other by Eli Lilly, show promise in the outpatient setting in results released on Oct. 28.

Regeneron, in a randomized, double-blind trial, is assessing the effect of adding its investigational antibody cocktail REGN-COV2 to usual standard of care in comparison with adding placebo to standard of care. A descriptive analysis from the first 275 patients was previously reported. The data described on Oct. 28, which involve an additional 524 patients, show that the trial met all of the first nine endpoints.

Regeneron announced prospective results from its phase 2/3 trial showing REGN-COV2 significantly reduced viral load and patient medical visits, which included hospitalizations, visits to an emergency department, visits for urgent care, and/or physician office/telemedicine visits.

Interest in the cocktail spiked after President Donald Trump extolled its benefits after it was used in his own COVID-19 treatment earlier in October.

Trump received the highest dose of the drug, 8 g, but, according to a Regeneron news release announcing the latest findings, “results showed no significant difference in virologic or clinical efficacy between the REGN-COV2 high dose (8 grams) and low dose (2.4 grams).”

The company described further results of the industry-funded study in the release: “On the primary endpoint, the average daily change in viral load through day 7 (mean time-weighted average change from baseline) in patients with high viral load (defined as greater than107 copies/mL) was a 0.68 log10 copies/mL greater reduction with REGN-COV2 compared to placebo (combined dose groups; P < .0001). There was a 1.08 log greater reduction with REGN-COV2 treatment by day 5, which corresponds to REGN-COV2 patients having, on average, a greater than 10-fold reduction in viral load, compared to placebo.”

The treatment appears to be most effective in patients most at risk, whether because of high viral load, ineffective baseline antibody immune response, or preexisting conditions, according to the researchers.

According to the press release, these results have not been peer reviewed but have been submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration, which is reviewing a potential emergency use authorization for the treatment in high-risk adults with mild to moderate COVID-19.

Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s treatment and vaccine program, contracted in July with Regeneron for up to 300,000 doses of its antibody cocktail.
 

Lilly treatment shows drop in hospitalizations, symptoms

Another treatment, also given in the outpatient setting, shows promise as well.

Patients recently diagnosed with mild to moderate COVID-19 who received Eli Lilly’s antibody treatment LY-CoV555 had fewer hospitalizations and symptoms compared with a group that received placebo, an interim analysis of a phase 2 trial indicates.

Peter Chen, MD, with the Department of Medicine, Women’s Guild Lung Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California, and colleagues found that the most profound effects were in the high-risk groups.

The interim findings of the BLAZE-1 study, which was funded by Eli Lilly, were published online October 28 in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers randomly assigned 452 patients to receive an intravenous infusion of LY-CoV555 in one of three doses (700 mg, 2800 mg, or 7000 mg) or placebo.

In the interim analysis, the researchers found that for the entire population, more than 99.97% of viral RNA was eliminated.

For patients who received the 2800-mg dose, the difference from placebo in the decrease from baseline was −0.53 (95% CI, −0.98 to −0.08; P = .02), for a log viral load that was lower by a factor of 3.4. Benefit over placebo was not significant with the other doses.

At day 29, according to the investigators, the percentage of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 was 1.6% (5 of 309 patients) in the treatment group compared with 6.3% (9 of 143 patients) in the placebo group.

Data indicate that the safety profile was similar whether patients received the active treatment or placebo.

“If these results are confirmed in additional analyses in this trial, LY-CoV555 could become a useful treatment for emergency use in patients with recently diagnosed Covid-19,” the authors write.

Deborah Fuller, PhD, professor in the Department of Microbiology at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, told Medscape Medical News the findings are «exciting» but only part of the treatment solution.

“What’s remarkable about these two studies and others I’ve seen,” she said, “is how consistent they are in terms of the window of time they will be effective, and that’s because they are just targeting the virus itself. They do not have an effect on the inflammation unless they stop the replication early enough.”

The treatments are effective when they are given near the time of diagnosis, she pointed out.

“Once the virus has started that inflammatory cascade in your body, then that train has left the station and you have to deal with the inflammation,” Fuller said.

She says future treatments will likely have to include both the antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties, and physicians will have to assess what’s best, given the stage of the the patient’s disease.

The trial of REGN-COV2 is funded by Regeneron. The BLAZE-1 study is funded by Eli Lilly. Many of the authors have financial ties to Eli Lilly. Fuller has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

This article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Two COVID-19 antibody treatments, one developed by Regeneron and the other by Eli Lilly, show promise in the outpatient setting in results released on Oct. 28.

Regeneron, in a randomized, double-blind trial, is assessing the effect of adding its investigational antibody cocktail REGN-COV2 to usual standard of care in comparison with adding placebo to standard of care. A descriptive analysis from the first 275 patients was previously reported. The data described on Oct. 28, which involve an additional 524 patients, show that the trial met all of the first nine endpoints.

Regeneron announced prospective results from its phase 2/3 trial showing REGN-COV2 significantly reduced viral load and patient medical visits, which included hospitalizations, visits to an emergency department, visits for urgent care, and/or physician office/telemedicine visits.

Interest in the cocktail spiked after President Donald Trump extolled its benefits after it was used in his own COVID-19 treatment earlier in October.

Trump received the highest dose of the drug, 8 g, but, according to a Regeneron news release announcing the latest findings, “results showed no significant difference in virologic or clinical efficacy between the REGN-COV2 high dose (8 grams) and low dose (2.4 grams).”

The company described further results of the industry-funded study in the release: “On the primary endpoint, the average daily change in viral load through day 7 (mean time-weighted average change from baseline) in patients with high viral load (defined as greater than107 copies/mL) was a 0.68 log10 copies/mL greater reduction with REGN-COV2 compared to placebo (combined dose groups; P < .0001). There was a 1.08 log greater reduction with REGN-COV2 treatment by day 5, which corresponds to REGN-COV2 patients having, on average, a greater than 10-fold reduction in viral load, compared to placebo.”

The treatment appears to be most effective in patients most at risk, whether because of high viral load, ineffective baseline antibody immune response, or preexisting conditions, according to the researchers.

According to the press release, these results have not been peer reviewed but have been submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration, which is reviewing a potential emergency use authorization for the treatment in high-risk adults with mild to moderate COVID-19.

Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s treatment and vaccine program, contracted in July with Regeneron for up to 300,000 doses of its antibody cocktail.
 

Lilly treatment shows drop in hospitalizations, symptoms

Another treatment, also given in the outpatient setting, shows promise as well.

Patients recently diagnosed with mild to moderate COVID-19 who received Eli Lilly’s antibody treatment LY-CoV555 had fewer hospitalizations and symptoms compared with a group that received placebo, an interim analysis of a phase 2 trial indicates.

Peter Chen, MD, with the Department of Medicine, Women’s Guild Lung Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California, and colleagues found that the most profound effects were in the high-risk groups.

The interim findings of the BLAZE-1 study, which was funded by Eli Lilly, were published online October 28 in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers randomly assigned 452 patients to receive an intravenous infusion of LY-CoV555 in one of three doses (700 mg, 2800 mg, or 7000 mg) or placebo.

In the interim analysis, the researchers found that for the entire population, more than 99.97% of viral RNA was eliminated.

For patients who received the 2800-mg dose, the difference from placebo in the decrease from baseline was −0.53 (95% CI, −0.98 to −0.08; P = .02), for a log viral load that was lower by a factor of 3.4. Benefit over placebo was not significant with the other doses.

At day 29, according to the investigators, the percentage of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 was 1.6% (5 of 309 patients) in the treatment group compared with 6.3% (9 of 143 patients) in the placebo group.

Data indicate that the safety profile was similar whether patients received the active treatment or placebo.

“If these results are confirmed in additional analyses in this trial, LY-CoV555 could become a useful treatment for emergency use in patients with recently diagnosed Covid-19,” the authors write.

Deborah Fuller, PhD, professor in the Department of Microbiology at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, told Medscape Medical News the findings are «exciting» but only part of the treatment solution.

“What’s remarkable about these two studies and others I’ve seen,” she said, “is how consistent they are in terms of the window of time they will be effective, and that’s because they are just targeting the virus itself. They do not have an effect on the inflammation unless they stop the replication early enough.”

The treatments are effective when they are given near the time of diagnosis, she pointed out.

“Once the virus has started that inflammatory cascade in your body, then that train has left the station and you have to deal with the inflammation,” Fuller said.

She says future treatments will likely have to include both the antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties, and physicians will have to assess what’s best, given the stage of the the patient’s disease.

The trial of REGN-COV2 is funded by Regeneron. The BLAZE-1 study is funded by Eli Lilly. Many of the authors have financial ties to Eli Lilly. Fuller has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

This article first appeared on Medscape.com.

A small subset of SARS-CoV-2 patients with “COVID toes” can be categorized as COVID-19 long-haulers, with skin symptoms sometimes enduring for more than 150 days, a new analysis revealed.

Evaluating data from an international registry of COVID-19 patients with dermatologic symptoms, researchers found that retiform purpura rashes are linked to severe COVID-19, with 100% of these patients requiring hospitalization and 82% experiencing acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).

Meanwhile, pernio/chilblains rashes, dubbed “COVID toes,” are associated with milder disease and a 16% hospitalization rate. For all COVID-19–related skin symptoms, the average duration is 12 days.

“The skin is another organ system that we didn’t know could have long COVID” effects, said principal investigator Esther Freeman, MD, PhD, of the department of dermatology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston.

“The skin is really a window into how the body is working overall, so the fact that we could visually see persistent inflammation in long-hauler patients is particularly fascinating and gives us a chance to explore what’s going on,” Dr. Freeman said in an interview. “It certainly makes sense to me, knowing what we know about other organ systems, that there might be some long-lasting inflammation” in the skin as well.

The study is a result of the collaboration between the American Academy of Dermatology and the International League of Dermatological Societies, the international registry launched this past April. While the study included provider-supplied data from 990 cases spanning 39 countries, the registry now encompasses more than 1,000 patients from 41 countries, Dr. Freeman noted.

Dr. Freeman presented the data at the annual congress of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology.

Many studies have reported dermatologic effects of COVID-19 infection, but information was lacking about duration. The registry represents the largest dataset to date detailing these persistent skin symptoms and offers insight about how COVID-19 can affect many different organ systems even after patients recover from acute infection, Dr. Freeman said.

Eight different types of skin rashes were noted in the study group, of which 303 were lab-confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients with skin symptoms. Of those, 224 total cases and 90 lab-confirmed cases included information on how long skin symptoms lasted. Lab tests for SARS-CoV-2 included polymerase chain reaction and serum antibody assays.

Dr. Freeman and associates defined “long-haulers” as patients with dermatologic symptoms of COVID-19 lasting 60 days or longer. These “outliers” are likely more prevalent than the registry suggests, she said, since not all providers initially reporting skin symptoms in patients updated that information over time.

“It’s important to understand that the registry is probably significantly underreporting the duration of symptoms and number of long-hauler patients,” she explained. “A registry is often a glimpse into a moment in time to these patients. To combat that, we followed up by email twice with providers to ask if patients’ symptoms were still ongoing or completed.”

Results showed a wide spectrum in average duration of symptoms among lab-confirmed COVID-19 patients, depending on specific rash. Urticaria lasted for a median of 4 days; morbilliform eruptions, 7 days; pernio/chilblains, 10 days; and papulosquamous eruptions, 20 days, with one long-hauler case lasting 70 days.

Five patients with pernio/chilblains were long-haulers, with toe symptoms enduring 60 days or longer. Only one went beyond 133 days with severe pernio and fatigue.

“The fact that we’re not necessarily seeing these long-hauler symptoms across every type of skin rash makes sense,” Dr. Freeman said. “Hives, for example, usually comes on acutely and leaves pretty rapidly. There are no reports of long-hauler hives.”

“That we’re really seeing these long-hauler symptoms in certain skin rashes really suggests that there’s a certain pathophysiology going in within that group of patients,” she added.

Dr. Freeman said not enough data have yet been generated to correlate long-standing COVID-19 skin symptoms with lasting cardiac, neurologic, or other symptoms of prolonged inflammation stemming from the virus.

Meanwhile, an EADV survey of 490 dermatologists revealed that just over one-third have seen patients presenting with skin signs of COVID-19. Moreover, 4% of dermatologists themselves tested positive for the virus.

Dr. Freeman encouraged all frontline clinicians assessing COVID-19 patients with skin symptoms to enter patients into the registry. But despite its strengths, the registry “can’t tell us what percentage of everyone who gets COVID will develop a skin finding or what percentage will be a long-hauler,” she said.

“A registry doesn’t have a denominator, so it’s like a giant case series,” she added.

“It will be very helpful going forward, as many places around the world experience second or third waves of COVID-19, to follow patients prospectively, acknowledge that patients will have symptoms lasting different amounts of time, and be aware these symptoms can occur on the skin,” she said.

Christopher Griffiths, MD, of the University of Manchester (England), praised the international registry as a valuable tool that will help clinicians better manage patients with COVID-19–related skin effects and predict prognosis.

“This has really brought the international dermatology community together, working on a focused goal relevant to all of us around the world,” Dr. Griffiths said in an interview. “It shows the power of communication and collaboration and what can be achieved in a short period of time.”

Dr. Freeman and Dr. Griffiths disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
 

A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.

A small subset of SARS-CoV-2 patients with “COVID toes” can be categorized as COVID-19 long-haulers, with skin symptoms sometimes enduring for more than 150 days, a new analysis revealed.

Evaluating data from an international registry of COVID-19 patients with dermatologic symptoms, researchers found that retiform purpura rashes are linked to severe COVID-19, with 100% of these patients requiring hospitalization and 82% experiencing acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).

Meanwhile, pernio/chilblains rashes, dubbed “COVID toes,” are associated with milder disease and a 16% hospitalization rate. For all COVID-19–related skin symptoms, the average duration is 12 days.

“The skin is another organ system that we didn’t know could have long COVID” effects, said principal investigator Esther Freeman, MD, PhD, of the department of dermatology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston.

“The skin is really a window into how the body is working overall, so the fact that we could visually see persistent inflammation in long-hauler patients is particularly fascinating and gives us a chance to explore what’s going on,” Dr. Freeman said in an interview. “It certainly makes sense to me, knowing what we know about other organ systems, that there might be some long-lasting inflammation” in the skin as well.

The study is a result of the collaboration between the American Academy of Dermatology and the International League of Dermatological Societies, the international registry launched this past April. While the study included provider-supplied data from 990 cases spanning 39 countries, the registry now encompasses more than 1,000 patients from 41 countries, Dr. Freeman noted.

Dr. Freeman presented the data at the annual congress of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology.

Many studies have reported dermatologic effects of COVID-19 infection, but information was lacking about duration. The registry represents the largest dataset to date detailing these persistent skin symptoms and offers insight about how COVID-19 can affect many different organ systems even after patients recover from acute infection, Dr. Freeman said.

Eight different types of skin rashes were noted in the study group, of which 303 were lab-confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients with skin symptoms. Of those, 224 total cases and 90 lab-confirmed cases included information on how long skin symptoms lasted. Lab tests for SARS-CoV-2 included polymerase chain reaction and serum antibody assays.

Dr. Freeman and associates defined “long-haulers” as patients with dermatologic symptoms of COVID-19 lasting 60 days or longer. These “outliers” are likely more prevalent than the registry suggests, she said, since not all providers initially reporting skin symptoms in patients updated that information over time.

“It’s important to understand that the registry is probably significantly underreporting the duration of symptoms and number of long-hauler patients,” she explained. “A registry is often a glimpse into a moment in time to these patients. To combat that, we followed up by email twice with providers to ask if patients’ symptoms were still ongoing or completed.”

Results showed a wide spectrum in average duration of symptoms among lab-confirmed COVID-19 patients, depending on specific rash. Urticaria lasted for a median of 4 days; morbilliform eruptions, 7 days; pernio/chilblains, 10 days; and papulosquamous eruptions, 20 days, with one long-hauler case lasting 70 days.

Five patients with pernio/chilblains were long-haulers, with toe symptoms enduring 60 days or longer. Only one went beyond 133 days with severe pernio and fatigue.

“The fact that we’re not necessarily seeing these long-hauler symptoms across every type of skin rash makes sense,” Dr. Freeman said. “Hives, for example, usually comes on acutely and leaves pretty rapidly. There are no reports of long-hauler hives.”

“That we’re really seeing these long-hauler symptoms in certain skin rashes really suggests that there’s a certain pathophysiology going in within that group of patients,” she added.

Dr. Freeman said not enough data have yet been generated to correlate long-standing COVID-19 skin symptoms with lasting cardiac, neurologic, or other symptoms of prolonged inflammation stemming from the virus.

Meanwhile, an EADV survey of 490 dermatologists revealed that just over one-third have seen patients presenting with skin signs of COVID-19. Moreover, 4% of dermatologists themselves tested positive for the virus.

Dr. Freeman encouraged all frontline clinicians assessing COVID-19 patients with skin symptoms to enter patients into the registry. But despite its strengths, the registry “can’t tell us what percentage of everyone who gets COVID will develop a skin finding or what percentage will be a long-hauler,” she said.

“A registry doesn’t have a denominator, so it’s like a giant case series,” she added.

“It will be very helpful going forward, as many places around the world experience second or third waves of COVID-19, to follow patients prospectively, acknowledge that patients will have symptoms lasting different amounts of time, and be aware these symptoms can occur on the skin,” she said.

Christopher Griffiths, MD, of the University of Manchester (England), praised the international registry as a valuable tool that will help clinicians better manage patients with COVID-19–related skin effects and predict prognosis.

“This has really brought the international dermatology community together, working on a focused goal relevant to all of us around the world,” Dr. Griffiths said in an interview. “It shows the power of communication and collaboration and what can be achieved in a short period of time.”

Dr. Freeman and Dr. Griffiths disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
 

A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.

A small subset of SARS-CoV-2 patients with “COVID toes” can be categorized as COVID-19 long-haulers, with skin symptoms sometimes enduring for more than 150 days, a new analysis revealed.

Evaluating data from an international registry of COVID-19 patients with dermatologic symptoms, researchers found that retiform purpura rashes are linked to severe COVID-19, with 100% of these patients requiring hospitalization and 82% experiencing acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).

Meanwhile, pernio/chilblains rashes, dubbed “COVID toes,” are associated with milder disease and a 16% hospitalization rate. For all COVID-19–related skin symptoms, the average duration is 12 days.

“The skin is another organ system that we didn’t know could have long COVID” effects, said principal investigator Esther Freeman, MD, PhD, of the department of dermatology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston.

“The skin is really a window into how the body is working overall, so the fact that we could visually see persistent inflammation in long-hauler patients is particularly fascinating and gives us a chance to explore what’s going on,” Dr. Freeman said in an interview. “It certainly makes sense to me, knowing what we know about other organ systems, that there might be some long-lasting inflammation” in the skin as well.

The study is a result of the collaboration between the American Academy of Dermatology and the International League of Dermatological Societies, the international registry launched this past April. While the study included provider-supplied data from 990 cases spanning 39 countries, the registry now encompasses more than 1,000 patients from 41 countries, Dr. Freeman noted.

Dr. Freeman presented the data at the annual congress of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology.

Many studies have reported dermatologic effects of COVID-19 infection, but information was lacking about duration. The registry represents the largest dataset to date detailing these persistent skin symptoms and offers insight about how COVID-19 can affect many different organ systems even after patients recover from acute infection, Dr. Freeman said.

Eight different types of skin rashes were noted in the study group, of which 303 were lab-confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients with skin symptoms. Of those, 224 total cases and 90 lab-confirmed cases included information on how long skin symptoms lasted. Lab tests for SARS-CoV-2 included polymerase chain reaction and serum antibody assays.

Dr. Freeman and associates defined “long-haulers” as patients with dermatologic symptoms of COVID-19 lasting 60 days or longer. These “outliers” are likely more prevalent than the registry suggests, she said, since not all providers initially reporting skin symptoms in patients updated that information over time.

“It’s important to understand that the registry is probably significantly underreporting the duration of symptoms and number of long-hauler patients,” she explained. “A registry is often a glimpse into a moment in time to these patients. To combat that, we followed up by email twice with providers to ask if patients’ symptoms were still ongoing or completed.”

Results showed a wide spectrum in average duration of symptoms among lab-confirmed COVID-19 patients, depending on specific rash. Urticaria lasted for a median of 4 days; morbilliform eruptions, 7 days; pernio/chilblains, 10 days; and papulosquamous eruptions, 20 days, with one long-hauler case lasting 70 days.

Five patients with pernio/chilblains were long-haulers, with toe symptoms enduring 60 days or longer. Only one went beyond 133 days with severe pernio and fatigue.

“The fact that we’re not necessarily seeing these long-hauler symptoms across every type of skin rash makes sense,” Dr. Freeman said. “Hives, for example, usually comes on acutely and leaves pretty rapidly. There are no reports of long-hauler hives.”

“That we’re really seeing these long-hauler symptoms in certain skin rashes really suggests that there’s a certain pathophysiology going in within that group of patients,” she added.

Dr. Freeman said not enough data have yet been generated to correlate long-standing COVID-19 skin symptoms with lasting cardiac, neurologic, or other symptoms of prolonged inflammation stemming from the virus.

Meanwhile, an EADV survey of 490 dermatologists revealed that just over one-third have seen patients presenting with skin signs of COVID-19. Moreover, 4% of dermatologists themselves tested positive for the virus.

Dr. Freeman encouraged all frontline clinicians assessing COVID-19 patients with skin symptoms to enter patients into the registry. But despite its strengths, the registry “can’t tell us what percentage of everyone who gets COVID will develop a skin finding or what percentage will be a long-hauler,” she said.

“A registry doesn’t have a denominator, so it’s like a giant case series,” she added.

“It will be very helpful going forward, as many places around the world experience second or third waves of COVID-19, to follow patients prospectively, acknowledge that patients will have symptoms lasting different amounts of time, and be aware these symptoms can occur on the skin,” she said.

Christopher Griffiths, MD, of the University of Manchester (England), praised the international registry as a valuable tool that will help clinicians better manage patients with COVID-19–related skin effects and predict prognosis.

“This has really brought the international dermatology community together, working on a focused goal relevant to all of us around the world,” Dr. Griffiths said in an interview. “It shows the power of communication and collaboration and what can be achieved in a short period of time.”

Dr. Freeman and Dr. Griffiths disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
 

A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.

Physician practices nationwide lost 32% of their revenue, on average, from February to the summer, according to a new American Medical Association survey of 3,500 physicians, conducted from mid-July to August. That period coincided with the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States.

A third of practices reported a revenue drop of 25%-49%; 15% said their volume had fallen by 50%-74%, and 4% saw a decrease of 75% or more.

Because of the pandemic, 81% of physicians were providing fewer in-person visits than in February. In-person visits dropped by 50% or more for more than one-third of physicians. The average number of in-person visits fell from 95 to 57 per week.

Physicians who responded to the survey held an average of six weekly telehealth visits before the pandemic, 29 at the height of the pandemic in the spring, and 16 the week they were surveyed. About 20% of respondents with any telehealth visits had conducted them before the pandemic, 77% at the height of the crisis, and 68% in the survey week.

Among the doctors who weren’t involved in telehealth visits before the pandemic, only 23% conducted them at the pandemic’s peak; 12% conducted them in the survey week.

Despite the telehealth increase, almost 70% of physicians were providing fewer total visits, including in-person and virtual encounters, than before the pandemic, the survey showed. About 21% saw a decrease of 25%-49%; 11%, a drop of 50%-74%; and 10%, a falloff of at least 75%. On average, total visits fell from 101 to 72 per week.
 

Other surveys more upbeat

A larger survey by Harvard University, the Commonwealth Fund, and the technology company Phreesia found that total outpatient visits in early October had rebounded to the level of March 1. This was a major turnaround from late March, when visits had plunged by nearly 60%.

According to the Harvard/Commonwealth Fund’s ongoing survey, visits started recovering in late June, although they were still off by 10%. They began rising further around Labor Day. The AMA researchers began conducting their survey in mid-June. The summertime surge in COVID-19 likely accounted for their finding that practice revenues were off by a third from the February baseline.

If so, the return to normalcy early this month may not represent the current situation as the virus sweeps across the country for a third time. In any case, even if patient visits and revenues have recovered more than the AMA data indicate, most practices will not have recovered from their losses earlier in the year.

A third survey more closely mirrors the AMA results. At the end of June, according to data from the Medical Group Management Association, revenues for the association’s members were 76% of what they had been in June 2019, and patient volume was 78% of that in the previous year.
 

Practice expenses rise

The AMA survey also found that, since February, practice spending on personal protective equipment (PPE) had increased by 57% or more, on average. About 64% of practice owners said their PPE expenditures were up from what they had been before the pandemic. For nearly 40% of practice owners, this expense had increased by 50% or more.

About 36% of the respondents said that acquiring PPE was very or extremely difficult. This was an especially big challenge for smaller practices, which do not have the purchasing power to compete with big health care systems for masks, gowns, and gloves, the AMA noted.

About 41% of doctors in practices with one to five physicians said they had difficulty getting PPE, compared with 30% of those in practices of 50 or more doctors. Only 25% of respondents in practices owned by hospitals and health systems said this was a problem.

Acquiring sufficient PPE is just one factor in the increase in practice expenses attributable to COVID-19. Still, it is indicative of the financial woes affecting physicians during the pandemic.

Nearly all respondents agreed that federal financial relief early in the pandemic was helpful and was appreciated. Among these programs was the CARES Act, which authorized the Provider Relief Fund, which accepted applications through Aug.28; the Medicare Accelerated and Advance Payment Program, which was suspended in April; and the SBA Paycheck Protection Program, which ended on Aug. 8.

To date, Congress had not approved the renewal of any these programs.

“Physician practices continue to be under significant financial stress due to reductions in patient volume and revenue, in addition to higher expenses for supplies that are scarce for some physicians,” said AMA President Susan R. Bailey, MD, in a news release on the survey’s findings. “More economic relief is needed now from Congress as some medical practices contemplate the brink of viability, particularly smaller practices that are facing a difficult road to recovery.”

A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.

Physician practices nationwide lost 32% of their revenue, on average, from February to the summer, according to a new American Medical Association survey of 3,500 physicians, conducted from mid-July to August. That period coincided with the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States.

A third of practices reported a revenue drop of 25%-49%; 15% said their volume had fallen by 50%-74%, and 4% saw a decrease of 75% or more.

Because of the pandemic, 81% of physicians were providing fewer in-person visits than in February. In-person visits dropped by 50% or more for more than one-third of physicians. The average number of in-person visits fell from 95 to 57 per week.

Physicians who responded to the survey held an average of six weekly telehealth visits before the pandemic, 29 at the height of the pandemic in the spring, and 16 the week they were surveyed. About 20% of respondents with any telehealth visits had conducted them before the pandemic, 77% at the height of the crisis, and 68% in the survey week.

Among the doctors who weren’t involved in telehealth visits before the pandemic, only 23% conducted them at the pandemic’s peak; 12% conducted them in the survey week.

Despite the telehealth increase, almost 70% of physicians were providing fewer total visits, including in-person and virtual encounters, than before the pandemic, the survey showed. About 21% saw a decrease of 25%-49%; 11%, a drop of 50%-74%; and 10%, a falloff of at least 75%. On average, total visits fell from 101 to 72 per week.
 

Other surveys more upbeat

A larger survey by Harvard University, the Commonwealth Fund, and the technology company Phreesia found that total outpatient visits in early October had rebounded to the level of March 1. This was a major turnaround from late March, when visits had plunged by nearly 60%.

According to the Harvard/Commonwealth Fund’s ongoing survey, visits started recovering in late June, although they were still off by 10%. They began rising further around Labor Day. The AMA researchers began conducting their survey in mid-June. The summertime surge in COVID-19 likely accounted for their finding that practice revenues were off by a third from the February baseline.

If so, the return to normalcy early this month may not represent the current situation as the virus sweeps across the country for a third time. In any case, even if patient visits and revenues have recovered more than the AMA data indicate, most practices will not have recovered from their losses earlier in the year.

A third survey more closely mirrors the AMA results. At the end of June, according to data from the Medical Group Management Association, revenues for the association’s members were 76% of what they had been in June 2019, and patient volume was 78% of that in the previous year.
 

Practice expenses rise

The AMA survey also found that, since February, practice spending on personal protective equipment (PPE) had increased by 57% or more, on average. About 64% of practice owners said their PPE expenditures were up from what they had been before the pandemic. For nearly 40% of practice owners, this expense had increased by 50% or more.

About 36% of the respondents said that acquiring PPE was very or extremely difficult. This was an especially big challenge for smaller practices, which do not have the purchasing power to compete with big health care systems for masks, gowns, and gloves, the AMA noted.

About 41% of doctors in practices with one to five physicians said they had difficulty getting PPE, compared with 30% of those in practices of 50 or more doctors. Only 25% of respondents in practices owned by hospitals and health systems said this was a problem.

Acquiring sufficient PPE is just one factor in the increase in practice expenses attributable to COVID-19. Still, it is indicative of the financial woes affecting physicians during the pandemic.

Nearly all respondents agreed that federal financial relief early in the pandemic was helpful and was appreciated. Among these programs was the CARES Act, which authorized the Provider Relief Fund, which accepted applications through Aug.28; the Medicare Accelerated and Advance Payment Program, which was suspended in April; and the SBA Paycheck Protection Program, which ended on Aug. 8.

To date, Congress had not approved the renewal of any these programs.

“Physician practices continue to be under significant financial stress due to reductions in patient volume and revenue, in addition to higher expenses for supplies that are scarce for some physicians,” said AMA President Susan R. Bailey, MD, in a news release on the survey’s findings. “More economic relief is needed now from Congress as some medical practices contemplate the brink of viability, particularly smaller practices that are facing a difficult road to recovery.”

A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.

Physician practices nationwide lost 32% of their revenue, on average, from February to the summer, according to a new American Medical Association survey of 3,500 physicians, conducted from mid-July to August. That period coincided with the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States.

A third of practices reported a revenue drop of 25%-49%; 15% said their volume had fallen by 50%-74%, and 4% saw a decrease of 75% or more.

Because of the pandemic, 81% of physicians were providing fewer in-person visits than in February. In-person visits dropped by 50% or more for more than one-third of physicians. The average number of in-person visits fell from 95 to 57 per week.

Physicians who responded to the survey held an average of six weekly telehealth visits before the pandemic, 29 at the height of the pandemic in the spring, and 16 the week they were surveyed. About 20% of respondents with any telehealth visits had conducted them before the pandemic, 77% at the height of the crisis, and 68% in the survey week.

Among the doctors who weren’t involved in telehealth visits before the pandemic, only 23% conducted them at the pandemic’s peak; 12% conducted them in the survey week.

Despite the telehealth increase, almost 70% of physicians were providing fewer total visits, including in-person and virtual encounters, than before the pandemic, the survey showed. About 21% saw a decrease of 25%-49%; 11%, a drop of 50%-74%; and 10%, a falloff of at least 75%. On average, total visits fell from 101 to 72 per week.
 

Other surveys more upbeat

A larger survey by Harvard University, the Commonwealth Fund, and the technology company Phreesia found that total outpatient visits in early October had rebounded to the level of March 1. This was a major turnaround from late March, when visits had plunged by nearly 60%.

According to the Harvard/Commonwealth Fund’s ongoing survey, visits started recovering in late June, although they were still off by 10%. They began rising further around Labor Day. The AMA researchers began conducting their survey in mid-June. The summertime surge in COVID-19 likely accounted for their finding that practice revenues were off by a third from the February baseline.

If so, the return to normalcy early this month may not represent the current situation as the virus sweeps across the country for a third time. In any case, even if patient visits and revenues have recovered more than the AMA data indicate, most practices will not have recovered from their losses earlier in the year.

A third survey more closely mirrors the AMA results. At the end of June, according to data from the Medical Group Management Association, revenues for the association’s members were 76% of what they had been in June 2019, and patient volume was 78% of that in the previous year.
 

Practice expenses rise

The AMA survey also found that, since February, practice spending on personal protective equipment (PPE) had increased by 57% or more, on average. About 64% of practice owners said their PPE expenditures were up from what they had been before the pandemic. For nearly 40% of practice owners, this expense had increased by 50% or more.

About 36% of the respondents said that acquiring PPE was very or extremely difficult. This was an especially big challenge for smaller practices, which do not have the purchasing power to compete with big health care systems for masks, gowns, and gloves, the AMA noted.

About 41% of doctors in practices with one to five physicians said they had difficulty getting PPE, compared with 30% of those in practices of 50 or more doctors. Only 25% of respondents in practices owned by hospitals and health systems said this was a problem.

Acquiring sufficient PPE is just one factor in the increase in practice expenses attributable to COVID-19. Still, it is indicative of the financial woes affecting physicians during the pandemic.

Nearly all respondents agreed that federal financial relief early in the pandemic was helpful and was appreciated. Among these programs was the CARES Act, which authorized the Provider Relief Fund, which accepted applications through Aug.28; the Medicare Accelerated and Advance Payment Program, which was suspended in April; and the SBA Paycheck Protection Program, which ended on Aug. 8.

To date, Congress had not approved the renewal of any these programs.

“Physician practices continue to be under significant financial stress due to reductions in patient volume and revenue, in addition to higher expenses for supplies that are scarce for some physicians,” said AMA President Susan R. Bailey, MD, in a news release on the survey’s findings. “More economic relief is needed now from Congress as some medical practices contemplate the brink of viability, particularly smaller practices that are facing a difficult road to recovery.”

A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.

The Department of Health & Human Services on Oct. 29 extended the deadline for health care groups to provide patients with immediate electronic access to their doctors’ clinical notes as well as test results and reports from pathology and imaging.

The mandate, called “open notes” by many, is part of the 21st Century Cures Act, and will now go into effect April 5.

The announcement comes just 4 days before the previously established Nov. 2 deadline and gives the pandemic as the reason for the delay.

“We are hearing that, while there is strong support for advancing patient access … stakeholders also must manage the needs being experienced during the current pandemic,” Don Rucker, MD, national coordinator for health information technology at HHS, said in a press statement.

“To be clear, the Office of the National Coordinator is not removing the requirements advancing patient access to their health information,” he added.
 

‘What you make of it’

Scott MacDonald, MD, electronic health record medical director at the University of California, Davis, said his organization is proceeding anyway. “UC Davis is going to start releasing notes and test results on Nov. 12,” he said in an interview.

Other organizations and practices now have more time, he said, but the law stays the same. “There’s no change to the what or why – only to the when,” Dr. MacDonald pointed out.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., will take advantage of the extra time, Trent Rosenbloom, MD, MPH, director of patient portals, said in an interview.

“Given the super-short time frame we had to work under as this emerged out from dealing with COVID, we feel that we have not addressed all the potential legal-edge cases such as dealing with adolescent medicine and child abuse,” he said.

On Oct. 21, this news organization reported on the then-imminent start of the new law, which irked many readers. They cited, among other things, the likelihood of patient confusion with fast patient access to all clinical notes.

“To me, the biggest issue is that we speak a foreign language that most outside of medicine don’t speak. Our job is to explain it to the patient at a level they can understand. What will 100% happen now is that a patient will not be able to reconcile what is in the note to what they’ve been told,” Andrew White, MD, wrote in a reader comment.

But benefits of open notes outweigh the risks, say proponents, who claim that doctor-patient communication and trust actually improve with information access and that research indicates other benefits such as improved medication adherence.

Open notes are “what you make of it,” said Marlene Millen, MD, an internist at UC San Diego Health, which has had a pilot open-notes program for 3 years.

“I actually end all of my appointments with: ‘Don’t forget to read your note later,’ ” she said in an interview.

Dr. Millen feared open notes initially but, within the first 3 months of usage, about 15 patients gave her direct feedback on how much they appreciated her notes. “It seemed to really reassure them that they were getting good care.”

Dr. MacDonald and Dr. Millen disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
 

A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.

The Department of Health & Human Services on Oct. 29 extended the deadline for health care groups to provide patients with immediate electronic access to their doctors’ clinical notes as well as test results and reports from pathology and imaging.

The mandate, called “open notes” by many, is part of the 21st Century Cures Act, and will now go into effect April 5.

The announcement comes just 4 days before the previously established Nov. 2 deadline and gives the pandemic as the reason for the delay.

“We are hearing that, while there is strong support for advancing patient access … stakeholders also must manage the needs being experienced during the current pandemic,” Don Rucker, MD, national coordinator for health information technology at HHS, said in a press statement.

“To be clear, the Office of the National Coordinator is not removing the requirements advancing patient access to their health information,” he added.
 

‘What you make of it’

Scott MacDonald, MD, electronic health record medical director at the University of California, Davis, said his organization is proceeding anyway. “UC Davis is going to start releasing notes and test results on Nov. 12,” he said in an interview.

Other organizations and practices now have more time, he said, but the law stays the same. “There’s no change to the what or why – only to the when,” Dr. MacDonald pointed out.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., will take advantage of the extra time, Trent Rosenbloom, MD, MPH, director of patient portals, said in an interview.

“Given the super-short time frame we had to work under as this emerged out from dealing with COVID, we feel that we have not addressed all the potential legal-edge cases such as dealing with adolescent medicine and child abuse,” he said.

On Oct. 21, this news organization reported on the then-imminent start of the new law, which irked many readers. They cited, among other things, the likelihood of patient confusion with fast patient access to all clinical notes.

“To me, the biggest issue is that we speak a foreign language that most outside of medicine don’t speak. Our job is to explain it to the patient at a level they can understand. What will 100% happen now is that a patient will not be able to reconcile what is in the note to what they’ve been told,” Andrew White, MD, wrote in a reader comment.

But benefits of open notes outweigh the risks, say proponents, who claim that doctor-patient communication and trust actually improve with information access and that research indicates other benefits such as improved medication adherence.

Open notes are “what you make of it,” said Marlene Millen, MD, an internist at UC San Diego Health, which has had a pilot open-notes program for 3 years.

“I actually end all of my appointments with: ‘Don’t forget to read your note later,’ ” she said in an interview.

Dr. Millen feared open notes initially but, within the first 3 months of usage, about 15 patients gave her direct feedback on how much they appreciated her notes. “It seemed to really reassure them that they were getting good care.”

Dr. MacDonald and Dr. Millen disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
 

A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.

The Department of Health & Human Services on Oct. 29 extended the deadline for health care groups to provide patients with immediate electronic access to their doctors’ clinical notes as well as test results and reports from pathology and imaging.

The mandate, called “open notes” by many, is part of the 21st Century Cures Act, and will now go into effect April 5.

The announcement comes just 4 days before the previously established Nov. 2 deadline and gives the pandemic as the reason for the delay.

“We are hearing that, while there is strong support for advancing patient access … stakeholders also must manage the needs being experienced during the current pandemic,” Don Rucker, MD, national coordinator for health information technology at HHS, said in a press statement.

“To be clear, the Office of the National Coordinator is not removing the requirements advancing patient access to their health information,” he added.
 

‘What you make of it’

Scott MacDonald, MD, electronic health record medical director at the University of California, Davis, said his organization is proceeding anyway. “UC Davis is going to start releasing notes and test results on Nov. 12,” he said in an interview.

Other organizations and practices now have more time, he said, but the law stays the same. “There’s no change to the what or why – only to the when,” Dr. MacDonald pointed out.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., will take advantage of the extra time, Trent Rosenbloom, MD, MPH, director of patient portals, said in an interview.

“Given the super-short time frame we had to work under as this emerged out from dealing with COVID, we feel that we have not addressed all the potential legal-edge cases such as dealing with adolescent medicine and child abuse,” he said.

On Oct. 21, this news organization reported on the then-imminent start of the new law, which irked many readers. They cited, among other things, the likelihood of patient confusion with fast patient access to all clinical notes.

“To me, the biggest issue is that we speak a foreign language that most outside of medicine don’t speak. Our job is to explain it to the patient at a level they can understand. What will 100% happen now is that a patient will not be able to reconcile what is in the note to what they’ve been told,” Andrew White, MD, wrote in a reader comment.

But benefits of open notes outweigh the risks, say proponents, who claim that doctor-patient communication and trust actually improve with information access and that research indicates other benefits such as improved medication adherence.

Open notes are “what you make of it,” said Marlene Millen, MD, an internist at UC San Diego Health, which has had a pilot open-notes program for 3 years.

“I actually end all of my appointments with: ‘Don’t forget to read your note later,’ ” she said in an interview.

Dr. Millen feared open notes initially but, within the first 3 months of usage, about 15 patients gave her direct feedback on how much they appreciated her notes. “It seemed to really reassure them that they were getting good care.”

Dr. MacDonald and Dr. Millen disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
 

A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.

Compelling advances in the ability to detect signs of consciousness in unconscious patients who have experienced traumatic brain injury (TBI) are leading to unprecedented changes in the field. There is now hope of improving outcomes and even sparing lives of patients who may otherwise have been mistakenly assessed as having no chance of recovery.

A recent key study represents a tipping point in the mounting evidence of the ability to detect “covert consciousness” in patients with TBI who are in an unconscious state. That research, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in June 2019, linked the promising signals of consciousness in comatose patients, detected only on imaging, with remarkable outcomes a year later.

“This was a landmark study,” said Brian L. Edlow, MD, in a presentation on the issue of covert consciousness at the virtual annual meeting of the American Neurological Association.

“Importantly, it is the first compelling evidence that early detection of covert consciousness also predicts 1-year outcomes in the Glasgow Outcome Scale Extended (GOSE), showing that covert consciousness in the ICU appears to be relevant for predicting long-term outcomes,” said Dr. Edlow, who is associate director of the Center for Neurotechnology and Neurorecovery, Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston.

The researchers showed that 15% of unconscious patients with acute brain injury in the study exhibited significant brain activity on EEG in response to stimuli that included verbal commands such as envisioning that they are playing tennis.

Although other studies have shown similar effects with task-based stimuli, the New England Journal of Medicine study further showed that a year later, the patients who had shown signs of covert consciousness, also called “cognitive motor dissociation” (CMD), were significantly more likely to have a good functional outcome, said the study’s senior author, Jan Claassen, MD, director of critical care neurology at Columbia University, New York, who also presented at the ANA session.

“Importantly, a year later after injury, we found that 44% of patients with CMD and only 14% of non-CMD patients had a good functional outcome, defined as a GOSE score indicating a state where they can at least take care of themselves for 8 hours in a day,” he said.

“[Whether] these patients in a CMD state represent a parallel state or a transitory state on the road to recovery remains to be shown,” he said.

Jennifer Frontera, MD, a professor in the department of neurology at NYU Langone Health in New York and comoderator of the session, agreed that the research is “remarkable.”

“Also,” she said, “it is practical, since many could potentially apply and validate his algorithms, since EEG technology is portable and widely available.”
 

Research has ushered in a ‘sea change’ in neurocritical care

The research has helped push forward recommendations on the treatment of unconscious patients, Dr. Edlow said. “This has led to a sea change in our field just over the last 2 years, with multiple guidelines published suggesting that it may be time for us to consider incorporating task-based fMRI and EEG techniques into our clinical assessment of patients with disorders of consciousness,” Dr. Edlow said.

Among those updating their recommendations was the American Academy of Neurology, which revised guidelines on practice parameters for patients in a persistent vegetative state. Those guidelines had not been updated since 1995.

Although concluding that “no diagnostic assessment procedure had moderate or strong evidence for use,” the guidelines acknowledge that “it is possible that a positive electromyographic (EMG) response to command, EEG reactivity to sensory stimuli, laser-evoked potentials, and the Perturbational Complexity Index can distinguish a minimally conscious state from vegetative state/unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (VS/UWS).”

Earlier this year, the European Academy of Neurology followed suit with updated guidelines of its own. In the EAN guideline, the academy’s Panel on Coma, Disorders of Consciousness recommends that task-based fMRI, EEG, and other advanced assessments be performed as part of a composite assessment of consciousness and that a patient’s best performance or highest level of consciousness on any of those tests should be a reflection of their diagnosis, Dr. Edlow explained.

“What this means is that our field is moving toward a multimodal assessment of consciousness in the ICU as well as beyond, in the subacute to chronic setting, whereby the behavioral exam, advanced DG, and advanced MRI methods all also contribute to the diagnosis of consciousness,” he said.

The standard for assessment of disorders of consciousness is the Coma Recovery Scale–Revised, with a 25-item scale for diagnosis, prediction of outcome, and assessment of potential treatment efficacy.

But much uncertainty can remain despite the assessment, Dr. Claassen said. “Behavioral assessments of patients with acute brain injury are challenging because examinations fluctuate, and there’s variability between assessors,” he said. “Nevertheless, patients and their families demand guidance from us.”

Dr. Edlow pointed out that the largest study to date of the causes of death among patients with TBI in the ICU underscores the need for better assessments.

The study of more than 600 patients at six level l trauma centers in Canada showed that 70% of patients who died in the ICU from TBI did so as the result of the withdrawal of life-sustaining therapy. However, only about a half (57%) had an unreactive pupil, and only about a quarter (23.7%) had evidence of herniation on CT, findings that are commonly associated with a poor prognosis.

“What emerges from this is that the manner in which the clinicians communicated the prognosis to families was a primary determinant of decisions to withdraw life-sustaining therapy,” Dr. Edlow said.
 

Negative response not necessarily conclusive

Dr. Edlow added a word of caution that the science is still far from perfect. He noted that, for 25% of healthy patients who are given a motor imagery task, neuroimaging might not show a response, implying that the lack of a signal may not be conclusive.

He described the case of a patient who was comatose at the time she was scanned on day 3 after injury and who showed no responses to language, music, or motor imagery during the MRI, yet a year later, she was functionally independent, back in the workforce, and had very few residual symptoms from her trauma.

“So if a patient does not show a response, that does not prove the patient is not conscious, and it does not prove that the patient is likely to have a poor outcome,” Dr. Edlow said. Such cases underscore the need for more advances in understanding the inner workings of brain injury.

Dr. Edlow and his colleagues are embarking on a trial of the effects of intravenous methylphenidate in targeting the stimulation of dopaminergic circuits within the subcortical ascending arousal network in patients with severe brain injuries.

“The scientific premise of the trial is that personalized brain network mapping in the ICU can identify patients whose connectomes are amenable to neuromodulation,” Dr. Edlow and his colleague report in an article in Neurocritical Care.

The trial, called STIMPACT (Stimulant Therapy Targeted to Individualized Connectivity Maps to Promote ReACTivation of Consciousness), is part of the newly launched Connectome-based Clinical Trial Platform, which the authors describe as “a new paradigm for developing and testing targeted therapies that promote early recovery of consciousness in the ICU.”

Such efforts are essential, given the high stakes of TBI outcomes, Dr. Edlow said.

“Let’s be clear about the stakes of an incorrect prognosis,” he said. “If we’re overly pessimistic, then a patient who could have potential for meaningful recovery will likely die in our ICU. On the other hand, if we are overly optimistic, then a patient could end up in a vegetative or minimally conscious state that he or she may never have found to be acceptable,” he said.
 

Access to technologies a ‘civil right?’

Some ethicists in the field are recommending that patients be given access to the advanced techniques as a civil right, similar to the rights described in the Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities, which was adopted by the United Nations in 2008, Dr. Edlow noted.

“So the question that we as clinicians are going to face moving forward from an ethical standpoint is, if we have access to these techniques, is it an ethical obligation to offer them now?” he said.

Dr. Edlow underscored the need to consider the reality that “there are profound issues relating to resource allocation and access to these advanced techniques, but we’re going to have to consider this together as we move forward.”

Dr. Edlow has received funding from the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Claassen is a minority shareholder with ICE Neurosystems. Dr. Frontera has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
 

A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.

Compelling advances in the ability to detect signs of consciousness in unconscious patients who have experienced traumatic brain injury (TBI) are leading to unprecedented changes in the field. There is now hope of improving outcomes and even sparing lives of patients who may otherwise have been mistakenly assessed as having no chance of recovery.

A recent key study represents a tipping point in the mounting evidence of the ability to detect “covert consciousness” in patients with TBI who are in an unconscious state. That research, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in June 2019, linked the promising signals of consciousness in comatose patients, detected only on imaging, with remarkable outcomes a year later.

“This was a landmark study,” said Brian L. Edlow, MD, in a presentation on the issue of covert consciousness at the virtual annual meeting of the American Neurological Association.

“Importantly, it is the first compelling evidence that early detection of covert consciousness also predicts 1-year outcomes in the Glasgow Outcome Scale Extended (GOSE), showing that covert consciousness in the ICU appears to be relevant for predicting long-term outcomes,” said Dr. Edlow, who is associate director of the Center for Neurotechnology and Neurorecovery, Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston.

The researchers showed that 15% of unconscious patients with acute brain injury in the study exhibited significant brain activity on EEG in response to stimuli that included verbal commands such as envisioning that they are playing tennis.

Although other studies have shown similar effects with task-based stimuli, the New England Journal of Medicine study further showed that a year later, the patients who had shown signs of covert consciousness, also called “cognitive motor dissociation” (CMD), were significantly more likely to have a good functional outcome, said the study’s senior author, Jan Claassen, MD, director of critical care neurology at Columbia University, New York, who also presented at the ANA session.

“Importantly, a year later after injury, we found that 44% of patients with CMD and only 14% of non-CMD patients had a good functional outcome, defined as a GOSE score indicating a state where they can at least take care of themselves for 8 hours in a day,” he said.

“[Whether] these patients in a CMD state represent a parallel state or a transitory state on the road to recovery remains to be shown,” he said.

Jennifer Frontera, MD, a professor in the department of neurology at NYU Langone Health in New York and comoderator of the session, agreed that the research is “remarkable.”

“Also,” she said, “it is practical, since many could potentially apply and validate his algorithms, since EEG technology is portable and widely available.”
 

Research has ushered in a ‘sea change’ in neurocritical care

The research has helped push forward recommendations on the treatment of unconscious patients, Dr. Edlow said. “This has led to a sea change in our field just over the last 2 years, with multiple guidelines published suggesting that it may be time for us to consider incorporating task-based fMRI and EEG techniques into our clinical assessment of patients with disorders of consciousness,” Dr. Edlow said.

Among those updating their recommendations was the American Academy of Neurology, which revised guidelines on practice parameters for patients in a persistent vegetative state. Those guidelines had not been updated since 1995.

Although concluding that “no diagnostic assessment procedure had moderate or strong evidence for use,” the guidelines acknowledge that “it is possible that a positive electromyographic (EMG) response to command, EEG reactivity to sensory stimuli, laser-evoked potentials, and the Perturbational Complexity Index can distinguish a minimally conscious state from vegetative state/unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (VS/UWS).”

Earlier this year, the European Academy of Neurology followed suit with updated guidelines of its own. In the EAN guideline, the academy’s Panel on Coma, Disorders of Consciousness recommends that task-based fMRI, EEG, and other advanced assessments be performed as part of a composite assessment of consciousness and that a patient’s best performance or highest level of consciousness on any of those tests should be a reflection of their diagnosis, Dr. Edlow explained.

“What this means is that our field is moving toward a multimodal assessment of consciousness in the ICU as well as beyond, in the subacute to chronic setting, whereby the behavioral exam, advanced DG, and advanced MRI methods all also contribute to the diagnosis of consciousness,” he said.

The standard for assessment of disorders of consciousness is the Coma Recovery Scale–Revised, with a 25-item scale for diagnosis, prediction of outcome, and assessment of potential treatment efficacy.

But much uncertainty can remain despite the assessment, Dr. Claassen said. “Behavioral assessments of patients with acute brain injury are challenging because examinations fluctuate, and there’s variability between assessors,” he said. “Nevertheless, patients and their families demand guidance from us.”

Dr. Edlow pointed out that the largest study to date of the causes of death among patients with TBI in the ICU underscores the need for better assessments.

The study of more than 600 patients at six level l trauma centers in Canada showed that 70% of patients who died in the ICU from TBI did so as the result of the withdrawal of life-sustaining therapy. However, only about a half (57%) had an unreactive pupil, and only about a quarter (23.7%) had evidence of herniation on CT, findings that are commonly associated with a poor prognosis.

“What emerges from this is that the manner in which the clinicians communicated the prognosis to families was a primary determinant of decisions to withdraw life-sustaining therapy,” Dr. Edlow said.
 

Negative response not necessarily conclusive

Dr. Edlow added a word of caution that the science is still far from perfect. He noted that, for 25% of healthy patients who are given a motor imagery task, neuroimaging might not show a response, implying that the lack of a signal may not be conclusive.

He described the case of a patient who was comatose at the time she was scanned on day 3 after injury and who showed no responses to language, music, or motor imagery during the MRI, yet a year later, she was functionally independent, back in the workforce, and had very few residual symptoms from her trauma.

“So if a patient does not show a response, that does not prove the patient is not conscious, and it does not prove that the patient is likely to have a poor outcome,” Dr. Edlow said. Such cases underscore the need for more advances in understanding the inner workings of brain injury.

Dr. Edlow and his colleagues are embarking on a trial of the effects of intravenous methylphenidate in targeting the stimulation of dopaminergic circuits within the subcortical ascending arousal network in patients with severe brain injuries.

“The scientific premise of the trial is that personalized brain network mapping in the ICU can identify patients whose connectomes are amenable to neuromodulation,” Dr. Edlow and his colleague report in an article in Neurocritical Care.

The trial, called STIMPACT (Stimulant Therapy Targeted to Individualized Connectivity Maps to Promote ReACTivation of Consciousness), is part of the newly launched Connectome-based Clinical Trial Platform, which the authors describe as “a new paradigm for developing and testing targeted therapies that promote early recovery of consciousness in the ICU.”

Such efforts are essential, given the high stakes of TBI outcomes, Dr. Edlow said.

“Let’s be clear about the stakes of an incorrect prognosis,” he said. “If we’re overly pessimistic, then a patient who could have potential for meaningful recovery will likely die in our ICU. On the other hand, if we are overly optimistic, then a patient could end up in a vegetative or minimally conscious state that he or she may never have found to be acceptable,” he said.
 

Access to technologies a ‘civil right?’

Some ethicists in the field are recommending that patients be given access to the advanced techniques as a civil right, similar to the rights described in the Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities, which was adopted by the United Nations in 2008, Dr. Edlow noted.

“So the question that we as clinicians are going to face moving forward from an ethical standpoint is, if we have access to these techniques, is it an ethical obligation to offer them now?” he said.

Dr. Edlow underscored the need to consider the reality that “there are profound issues relating to resource allocation and access to these advanced techniques, but we’re going to have to consider this together as we move forward.”

Dr. Edlow has received funding from the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Claassen is a minority shareholder with ICE Neurosystems. Dr. Frontera has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
 

A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.

Compelling advances in the ability to detect signs of consciousness in unconscious patients who have experienced traumatic brain injury (TBI) are leading to unprecedented changes in the field. There is now hope of improving outcomes and even sparing lives of patients who may otherwise have been mistakenly assessed as having no chance of recovery.

A recent key study represents a tipping point in the mounting evidence of the ability to detect “covert consciousness” in patients with TBI who are in an unconscious state. That research, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in June 2019, linked the promising signals of consciousness in comatose patients, detected only on imaging, with remarkable outcomes a year later.

“This was a landmark study,” said Brian L. Edlow, MD, in a presentation on the issue of covert consciousness at the virtual annual meeting of the American Neurological Association.

“Importantly, it is the first compelling evidence that early detection of covert consciousness also predicts 1-year outcomes in the Glasgow Outcome Scale Extended (GOSE), showing that covert consciousness in the ICU appears to be relevant for predicting long-term outcomes,” said Dr. Edlow, who is associate director of the Center for Neurotechnology and Neurorecovery, Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston.

The researchers showed that 15% of unconscious patients with acute brain injury in the study exhibited significant brain activity on EEG in response to stimuli that included verbal commands such as envisioning that they are playing tennis.

Although other studies have shown similar effects with task-based stimuli, the New England Journal of Medicine study further showed that a year later, the patients who had shown signs of covert consciousness, also called “cognitive motor dissociation” (CMD), were significantly more likely to have a good functional outcome, said the study’s senior author, Jan Claassen, MD, director of critical care neurology at Columbia University, New York, who also presented at the ANA session.

“Importantly, a year later after injury, we found that 44% of patients with CMD and only 14% of non-CMD patients had a good functional outcome, defined as a GOSE score indicating a state where they can at least take care of themselves for 8 hours in a day,” he said.

“[Whether] these patients in a CMD state represent a parallel state or a transitory state on the road to recovery remains to be shown,” he said.

Jennifer Frontera, MD, a professor in the department of neurology at NYU Langone Health in New York and comoderator of the session, agreed that the research is “remarkable.”

“Also,” she said, “it is practical, since many could potentially apply and validate his algorithms, since EEG technology is portable and widely available.”
 

Research has ushered in a ‘sea change’ in neurocritical care

The research has helped push forward recommendations on the treatment of unconscious patients, Dr. Edlow said. “This has led to a sea change in our field just over the last 2 years, with multiple guidelines published suggesting that it may be time for us to consider incorporating task-based fMRI and EEG techniques into our clinical assessment of patients with disorders of consciousness,” Dr. Edlow said.

Among those updating their recommendations was the American Academy of Neurology, which revised guidelines on practice parameters for patients in a persistent vegetative state. Those guidelines had not been updated since 1995.

Although concluding that “no diagnostic assessment procedure had moderate or strong evidence for use,” the guidelines acknowledge that “it is possible that a positive electromyographic (EMG) response to command, EEG reactivity to sensory stimuli, laser-evoked potentials, and the Perturbational Complexity Index can distinguish a minimally conscious state from vegetative state/unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (VS/UWS).”

Earlier this year, the European Academy of Neurology followed suit with updated guidelines of its own. In the EAN guideline, the academy’s Panel on Coma, Disorders of Consciousness recommends that task-based fMRI, EEG, and other advanced assessments be performed as part of a composite assessment of consciousness and that a patient’s best performance or highest level of consciousness on any of those tests should be a reflection of their diagnosis, Dr. Edlow explained.

“What this means is that our field is moving toward a multimodal assessment of consciousness in the ICU as well as beyond, in the subacute to chronic setting, whereby the behavioral exam, advanced DG, and advanced MRI methods all also contribute to the diagnosis of consciousness,” he said.

The standard for assessment of disorders of consciousness is the Coma Recovery Scale–Revised, with a 25-item scale for diagnosis, prediction of outcome, and assessment of potential treatment efficacy.

But much uncertainty can remain despite the assessment, Dr. Claassen said. “Behavioral assessments of patients with acute brain injury are challenging because examinations fluctuate, and there’s variability between assessors,” he said. “Nevertheless, patients and their families demand guidance from us.”

Dr. Edlow pointed out that the largest study to date of the causes of death among patients with TBI in the ICU underscores the need for better assessments.

The study of more than 600 patients at six level l trauma centers in Canada showed that 70% of patients who died in the ICU from TBI did so as the result of the withdrawal of life-sustaining therapy. However, only about a half (57%) had an unreactive pupil, and only about a quarter (23.7%) had evidence of herniation on CT, findings that are commonly associated with a poor prognosis.

“What emerges from this is that the manner in which the clinicians communicated the prognosis to families was a primary determinant of decisions to withdraw life-sustaining therapy,” Dr. Edlow said.
 

Negative response not necessarily conclusive

Dr. Edlow added a word of caution that the science is still far from perfect. He noted that, for 25% of healthy patients who are given a motor imagery task, neuroimaging might not show a response, implying that the lack of a signal may not be conclusive.

He described the case of a patient who was comatose at the time she was scanned on day 3 after injury and who showed no responses to language, music, or motor imagery during the MRI, yet a year later, she was functionally independent, back in the workforce, and had very few residual symptoms from her trauma.

“So if a patient does not show a response, that does not prove the patient is not conscious, and it does not prove that the patient is likely to have a poor outcome,” Dr. Edlow said. Such cases underscore the need for more advances in understanding the inner workings of brain injury.

Dr. Edlow and his colleagues are embarking on a trial of the effects of intravenous methylphenidate in targeting the stimulation of dopaminergic circuits within the subcortical ascending arousal network in patients with severe brain injuries.

“The scientific premise of the trial is that personalized brain network mapping in the ICU can identify patients whose connectomes are amenable to neuromodulation,” Dr. Edlow and his colleague report in an article in Neurocritical Care.

The trial, called STIMPACT (Stimulant Therapy Targeted to Individualized Connectivity Maps to Promote ReACTivation of Consciousness), is part of the newly launched Connectome-based Clinical Trial Platform, which the authors describe as “a new paradigm for developing and testing targeted therapies that promote early recovery of consciousness in the ICU.”

Such efforts are essential, given the high stakes of TBI outcomes, Dr. Edlow said.

“Let’s be clear about the stakes of an incorrect prognosis,” he said. “If we’re overly pessimistic, then a patient who could have potential for meaningful recovery will likely die in our ICU. On the other hand, if we are overly optimistic, then a patient could end up in a vegetative or minimally conscious state that he or she may never have found to be acceptable,” he said.
 

Access to technologies a ‘civil right?’

Some ethicists in the field are recommending that patients be given access to the advanced techniques as a civil right, similar to the rights described in the Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities, which was adopted by the United Nations in 2008, Dr. Edlow noted.

“So the question that we as clinicians are going to face moving forward from an ethical standpoint is, if we have access to these techniques, is it an ethical obligation to offer them now?” he said.

Dr. Edlow underscored the need to consider the reality that “there are profound issues relating to resource allocation and access to these advanced techniques, but we’re going to have to consider this together as we move forward.”

Dr. Edlow has received funding from the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Claassen is a minority shareholder with ICE Neurosystems. Dr. Frontera has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
 

A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.

The images are graphic, disturbing, and endless, said a former Facebook employee. Her job as a content moderator required that she review and remove disturbing posts. That work, she claimed in a lawsuit, caused her to suffer serious psychological trauma.

thinkstockphotos.com

In September 2018, she filed a complaint with the Superior Court of California.

“Every day, Facebook users post millions of videos, images, and livestream broadcasts of child sexual abuse, rape, torture, bestiality, beheadings, suicide, and murder,” reads the complaint. “By requiring its content moderators to work in dangerous conditions that cause debilitating physical and psychological harm, Facebook violates California law.”

In May, Facebook settled the case, agreeing to pay $52 million to content moderators to compensate them for the consequences their work had on their mental health. The settlement was the first to officially recognize the psychological toll of exposure to disturbing material resulting from online moderator jobs. It also highlights an emerging understanding of vicarious trauma.

Also known as secondary trauma, vicarious trauma can result from exposure to images, stories, or accounts that someone does not directly experience, said Françoise Mathieu, MEd, CCC, RP, a compassion fatigue specialist and executive director of TEND, a company in Kingston, Ont., that offers resources and training for people who work in high-stress, trauma-exposed workplaces.

Secondary trauma can affect people much as any other kind of intensely stressful experience. “What I can tell you as a specialist is that trauma is trauma,” Mathieu said. “Our brain doesn’t necessarily know the difference.”

The potential for vicarious trauma has long been recognized as a risk for journalists, health care providers, and anyone who watches television coverage of a disaster. Only recently, Mathieu said, have researchers started to investigate the psychological impact of jobs that require people to look at extreme, graphic, or disturbing images.
 

Physical fallout

In a 2017 study of digital forensic examiners, researchers found that examiners who worked on cases involving sexual crimes against children were at elevated risk of developing secondary trauma.

However, the exploratory study did not quantify the risks, and the study investigators concluded that more research is needed to understand how best to help people deal with PTSD resulting from working in the criminal justice system.

Content moderation requires sifting through upsetting images, and people can react in different ways to the task, says Anthony Ng, MD, a psychiatrist at Hartford (Conn.) Healthcare in Mansfield Center.

Dr. Ng says some individuals may become emotionally numb in order to protect themselves. Others might relate to what they are seeing, either because of their own life circumstances or because of experiences they have had in the past. For example, individuals might think: “I could see that kid being my son, I could see that woman who was assaulted as my wife who got beaten up”

Vicarious trauma can cause a physical stress response – the classic fight-or-flight reaction – to a threat that ramps up activity in an area of the brain called the locus coeruleus, Dr. Ng said.

Heart rate rises. Breathing rate goes up. Muscles become tense. If a threat occurs once and then dissipates, the body can often recover a state of calm. However, when that threat is part of the daily workday, it can cause chronic harm to mental and physical health. Unlike with direct, or primary, trauma, he adds, secondary trauma can take a while to become symptomatic.

“Your heart is not designed to be constantly pumping at a high rate,” Dr. Ng says. “We just can’t sustain that for long periods of time without starting to develop stress reactions.”
 

Under the radar

Some types of work appear to confer greater risk for trauma than others. Overall, estimates show that up to 8% of the U.S. population will develop PTSD at some point in their lives, Ms. Mathieu said.

For police officers, the rate is 15%. According to reporting by The Verge, lawyers in the Facebook lawsuit cited vicarious trauma rates of up to 50% among content moderators.

There are multiple reasons why content moderators suffer such high rates of mental health problems, Ms. Mathieu said. Content moderation is a low-paying, thankless, and solo job that can seem never-ending, she said.

Furthermore, content moderators are generally uninformed about the psychological risks associated with their occupation. They aren’t given the time to process what they are exposed to and generally don’t feel recognized or appreciated for the work they do.

That makes their jobs different from those of people such as law enforcement officers who investigate Internet crimes. For people pursuing justice, a sense of unity can counterbalance the exposure to tough imagery and information.

Going forward, Ms. Mathieu said, the only way to make content moderation safer is to institute changes such as better pay, more flexible schedules to allow breaks from exposure, and access to mental health professionals who can help employees process what they have seen.
 

Climate of fear

“This can’t be a climate of fear where people are afraid to ask for help,” Ms. Mathieu said. “They are really important jobs, but people need to feel that they are safe in expressing when it’s impacting them so that they’re not worried that they’re actually going to lose their work.”

It would help if content moderators received evidence-based guidance to help process their experiences, Ms. Mathieu added. However, to avoid doing more harm than good, debriefing has to be administered correctly.

For example, a method called “critical incident stress debriefing,” a longstanding approach that research has shown can do more harm than good, is still widely used in law enforcement agencies. The technique requires individuals to talk about their traumatic experience immediately after it happens, which can cause retraumatization.

Instead, Dr. Ng recommended a more self-aware approach called low-impact debriefing. The method involves strategies such as giving fair warning, asking for consent from listeners, and being selective about the details shared.

Employees should also be taught to recognize and report early signs and symptoms so that they can seek help before psychological distress becomes overwhelming, Dr. Ng says.

Plenty of moderators do not develop PTSD, he said, despite their exposure to upsetting imagery. This suggests an important avenue for research – understanding what makes some people resilient, even in the face of graphic and disturbing stressors.

A version of this story originally appeared on Medscape.com.

The images are graphic, disturbing, and endless, said a former Facebook employee. Her job as a content moderator required that she review and remove disturbing posts. That work, she claimed in a lawsuit, caused her to suffer serious psychological trauma.

thinkstockphotos.com

In September 2018, she filed a complaint with the Superior Court of California.

“Every day, Facebook users post millions of videos, images, and livestream broadcasts of child sexual abuse, rape, torture, bestiality, beheadings, suicide, and murder,” reads the complaint. “By requiring its content moderators to work in dangerous conditions that cause debilitating physical and psychological harm, Facebook violates California law.”

In May, Facebook settled the case, agreeing to pay $52 million to content moderators to compensate them for the consequences their work had on their mental health. The settlement was the first to officially recognize the psychological toll of exposure to disturbing material resulting from online moderator jobs. It also highlights an emerging understanding of vicarious trauma.

Also known as secondary trauma, vicarious trauma can result from exposure to images, stories, or accounts that someone does not directly experience, said Françoise Mathieu, MEd, CCC, RP, a compassion fatigue specialist and executive director of TEND, a company in Kingston, Ont., that offers resources and training for people who work in high-stress, trauma-exposed workplaces.

Secondary trauma can affect people much as any other kind of intensely stressful experience. “What I can tell you as a specialist is that trauma is trauma,” Mathieu said. “Our brain doesn’t necessarily know the difference.”

The potential for vicarious trauma has long been recognized as a risk for journalists, health care providers, and anyone who watches television coverage of a disaster. Only recently, Mathieu said, have researchers started to investigate the psychological impact of jobs that require people to look at extreme, graphic, or disturbing images.
 

Physical fallout

In a 2017 study of digital forensic examiners, researchers found that examiners who worked on cases involving sexual crimes against children were at elevated risk of developing secondary trauma.

However, the exploratory study did not quantify the risks, and the study investigators concluded that more research is needed to understand how best to help people deal with PTSD resulting from working in the criminal justice system.

Content moderation requires sifting through upsetting images, and people can react in different ways to the task, says Anthony Ng, MD, a psychiatrist at Hartford (Conn.) Healthcare in Mansfield Center.

Dr. Ng says some individuals may become emotionally numb in order to protect themselves. Others might relate to what they are seeing, either because of their own life circumstances or because of experiences they have had in the past. For example, individuals might think: “I could see that kid being my son, I could see that woman who was assaulted as my wife who got beaten up”

Vicarious trauma can cause a physical stress response – the classic fight-or-flight reaction – to a threat that ramps up activity in an area of the brain called the locus coeruleus, Dr. Ng said.

Heart rate rises. Breathing rate goes up. Muscles become tense. If a threat occurs once and then dissipates, the body can often recover a state of calm. However, when that threat is part of the daily workday, it can cause chronic harm to mental and physical health. Unlike with direct, or primary, trauma, he adds, secondary trauma can take a while to become symptomatic.

“Your heart is not designed to be constantly pumping at a high rate,” Dr. Ng says. “We just can’t sustain that for long periods of time without starting to develop stress reactions.”
 

Under the radar

Some types of work appear to confer greater risk for trauma than others. Overall, estimates show that up to 8% of the U.S. population will develop PTSD at some point in their lives, Ms. Mathieu said.

For police officers, the rate is 15%. According to reporting by The Verge, lawyers in the Facebook lawsuit cited vicarious trauma rates of up to 50% among content moderators.

There are multiple reasons why content moderators suffer such high rates of mental health problems, Ms. Mathieu said. Content moderation is a low-paying, thankless, and solo job that can seem never-ending, she said.

Furthermore, content moderators are generally uninformed about the psychological risks associated with their occupation. They aren’t given the time to process what they are exposed to and generally don’t feel recognized or appreciated for the work they do.

That makes their jobs different from those of people such as law enforcement officers who investigate Internet crimes. For people pursuing justice, a sense of unity can counterbalance the exposure to tough imagery and information.

Going forward, Ms. Mathieu said, the only way to make content moderation safer is to institute changes such as better pay, more flexible schedules to allow breaks from exposure, and access to mental health professionals who can help employees process what they have seen.
 

Climate of fear

“This can’t be a climate of fear where people are afraid to ask for help,” Ms. Mathieu said. “They are really important jobs, but people need to feel that they are safe in expressing when it’s impacting them so that they’re not worried that they’re actually going to lose their work.”

It would help if content moderators received evidence-based guidance to help process their experiences, Ms. Mathieu added. However, to avoid doing more harm than good, debriefing has to be administered correctly.

For example, a method called “critical incident stress debriefing,” a longstanding approach that research has shown can do more harm than good, is still widely used in law enforcement agencies. The technique requires individuals to talk about their traumatic experience immediately after it happens, which can cause retraumatization.

Instead, Dr. Ng recommended a more self-aware approach called low-impact debriefing. The method involves strategies such as giving fair warning, asking for consent from listeners, and being selective about the details shared.

Employees should also be taught to recognize and report early signs and symptoms so that they can seek help before psychological distress becomes overwhelming, Dr. Ng says.

Plenty of moderators do not develop PTSD, he said, despite their exposure to upsetting imagery. This suggests an important avenue for research – understanding what makes some people resilient, even in the face of graphic and disturbing stressors.

A version of this story originally appeared on Medscape.com.

The images are graphic, disturbing, and endless, said a former Facebook employee. Her job as a content moderator required that she review and remove disturbing posts. That work, she claimed in a lawsuit, caused her to suffer serious psychological trauma.

thinkstockphotos.com

In September 2018, she filed a complaint with the Superior Court of California.

“Every day, Facebook users post millions of videos, images, and livestream broadcasts of child sexual abuse, rape, torture, bestiality, beheadings, suicide, and murder,” reads the complaint. “By requiring its content moderators to work in dangerous conditions that cause debilitating physical and psychological harm, Facebook violates California law.”

In May, Facebook settled the case, agreeing to pay $52 million to content moderators to compensate them for the consequences their work had on their mental health. The settlement was the first to officially recognize the psychological toll of exposure to disturbing material resulting from online moderator jobs. It also highlights an emerging understanding of vicarious trauma.

Also known as secondary trauma, vicarious trauma can result from exposure to images, stories, or accounts that someone does not directly experience, said Françoise Mathieu, MEd, CCC, RP, a compassion fatigue specialist and executive director of TEND, a company in Kingston, Ont., that offers resources and training for people who work in high-stress, trauma-exposed workplaces.

Secondary trauma can affect people much as any other kind of intensely stressful experience. “What I can tell you as a specialist is that trauma is trauma,” Mathieu said. “Our brain doesn’t necessarily know the difference.”

The potential for vicarious trauma has long been recognized as a risk for journalists, health care providers, and anyone who watches television coverage of a disaster. Only recently, Mathieu said, have researchers started to investigate the psychological impact of jobs that require people to look at extreme, graphic, or disturbing images.
 

Physical fallout

In a 2017 study of digital forensic examiners, researchers found that examiners who worked on cases involving sexual crimes against children were at elevated risk of developing secondary trauma.

However, the exploratory study did not quantify the risks, and the study investigators concluded that more research is needed to understand how best to help people deal with PTSD resulting from working in the criminal justice system.

Content moderation requires sifting through upsetting images, and people can react in different ways to the task, says Anthony Ng, MD, a psychiatrist at Hartford (Conn.) Healthcare in Mansfield Center.

Dr. Ng says some individuals may become emotionally numb in order to protect themselves. Others might relate to what they are seeing, either because of their own life circumstances or because of experiences they have had in the past. For example, individuals might think: “I could see that kid being my son, I could see that woman who was assaulted as my wife who got beaten up”

Vicarious trauma can cause a physical stress response – the classic fight-or-flight reaction – to a threat that ramps up activity in an area of the brain called the locus coeruleus, Dr. Ng said.

Heart rate rises. Breathing rate goes up. Muscles become tense. If a threat occurs once and then dissipates, the body can often recover a state of calm. However, when that threat is part of the daily workday, it can cause chronic harm to mental and physical health. Unlike with direct, or primary, trauma, he adds, secondary trauma can take a while to become symptomatic.

“Your heart is not designed to be constantly pumping at a high rate,” Dr. Ng says. “We just can’t sustain that for long periods of time without starting to develop stress reactions.”
 

Under the radar

Some types of work appear to confer greater risk for trauma than others. Overall, estimates show that up to 8% of the U.S. population will develop PTSD at some point in their lives, Ms. Mathieu said.

For police officers, the rate is 15%. According to reporting by The Verge, lawyers in the Facebook lawsuit cited vicarious trauma rates of up to 50% among content moderators.

There are multiple reasons why content moderators suffer such high rates of mental health problems, Ms. Mathieu said. Content moderation is a low-paying, thankless, and solo job that can seem never-ending, she said.

Furthermore, content moderators are generally uninformed about the psychological risks associated with their occupation. They aren’t given the time to process what they are exposed to and generally don’t feel recognized or appreciated for the work they do.

That makes their jobs different from those of people such as law enforcement officers who investigate Internet crimes. For people pursuing justice, a sense of unity can counterbalance the exposure to tough imagery and information.

Going forward, Ms. Mathieu said, the only way to make content moderation safer is to institute changes such as better pay, more flexible schedules to allow breaks from exposure, and access to mental health professionals who can help employees process what they have seen.
 

Climate of fear

“This can’t be a climate of fear where people are afraid to ask for help,” Ms. Mathieu said. “They are really important jobs, but people need to feel that they are safe in expressing when it’s impacting them so that they’re not worried that they’re actually going to lose their work.”

It would help if content moderators received evidence-based guidance to help process their experiences, Ms. Mathieu added. However, to avoid doing more harm than good, debriefing has to be administered correctly.

For example, a method called “critical incident stress debriefing,” a longstanding approach that research has shown can do more harm than good, is still widely used in law enforcement agencies. The technique requires individuals to talk about their traumatic experience immediately after it happens, which can cause retraumatization.

Instead, Dr. Ng recommended a more self-aware approach called low-impact debriefing. The method involves strategies such as giving fair warning, asking for consent from listeners, and being selective about the details shared.

Employees should also be taught to recognize and report early signs and symptoms so that they can seek help before psychological distress becomes overwhelming, Dr. Ng says.

Plenty of moderators do not develop PTSD, he said, despite their exposure to upsetting imagery. This suggests an important avenue for research – understanding what makes some people resilient, even in the face of graphic and disturbing stressors.

A version of this story originally appeared on Medscape.com.

A routine scan used to evaluate some acute stroke patients can also detect SARS-CoV-2 infection in the upper lungs, a new study shows.

“As part of the stroke evaluation workup process, we were able to diagnose COVID-19 at the same time at no extra cost or additional workload,” lead author Charles Esenwa, MD, commented to Medscape Medical News. “This is an objective way to screen for COVID-19 in the acute stroke setting,” he added.

Esenwa is an assistant professor and a stroke neurologist at the Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.

He explained that, during the COVID-19 surge earlier this year, assessment of patients with severe acute stroke using computed tomography angiogram (CTA) scans – used to evaluate suitability for endovascular stroke therapy – also showed findings in the upper lung consistent with viral infection in some patients.

“We then assumed that these patients had COVID-19 and took extra precautions to keep them isolated and to protect staff involved in their care. It also allowed us to triage these patients more quickly than waiting for the COVID-19 swab test and arrange the most appropriate care for them,” Esenwa said.

The researchers have now gone back and analyzed their data on acute stroke patients who underwent CTA at their institution during the COVID-19 surge. They found that the changes identified in the lungs were highly specific for diagnosing SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The study was published online on Oct. 29 in Stroke.

“Stroke patients are normally screened for COVID-19 on hospitalization, but the swab test result can take several hours or longer to come back, and it is very useful for us to know if a patient could be infected,” Esenwa noted.

“When we do a CTA, we look at the blood vessels supplying the brain, but the scan also covers the top of the lung, as it starts at the aortic arch. We don’t normally look closely at that area, but we started to notice signs of active lung infection which could have been COVID-19,” he said. “For this paper, we went back to assess how accurate this approach actually was vs. the COVID-19 PCR test.”

The researchers report on 57 patients who presented to three Montefiore Health System hospitals in the Bronx, in New York City, with acute ischemic stroke and who underwent CTA of the head and neck in March and April 2020, the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak there. The patients also underwent PCR testing for COVID-19.

Results showed that 30 patients had a positive COVID-19 test result and that 27 had a negative result. Lung findings highly or very highly suspicious for COVID-19 pneumonia were identified during the CTA scan in 20 (67%) of the COVID-19–positive patients and in two (7%) of the COVID-19–negative patients.

These findings, when used in isolation, yielded a sensitivity of 0.67 and a specificity of 0.93. They had a positive predictive value of 0.19, a negative predictive value of 0.99, and accuracy of 0.92 for the diagnosis of COVID-19.

When apical lung assessment was combined with self-reported clinical symptoms of cough or dyspnea, sensitivity for the diagnosis of COVID-19 for patients presenting to the hospital for acute ischemic stroke increased to 0.83.

“We wondered whether looking at the whole lung would have found better results, but other studies which have done this actually found similar numbers to ours, so we think actually just looking at the top of the lungs, which can be seen in a stroke CTA, may be sufficient,” Esenwa said.

He emphasized the importance of establishing whether an acute stroke patient has COVID-19. “If we had a high suspicion of COVID-19 infection, we would take more precautions during any procedures, such as thrombectomy, and make sure to keep the patient isolated afterwards. It doesn’t necessarily affect the treatment given for stroke, but it affects the safety of the patients and everyone caring for them,” he commented.

Esenwa explained that intubation – which is sometime necessary during thrombectomy – can expose everyone in the room to aerosolized droplets. “So we would take much higher safety precautions if we thought the patient was COVID-19 positive,” he said.

“Early COVID-19 diagnosis also means patients can be given supportive treatment more quickly, admitted to ICU if appropriate, and we can all keep a close eye on pulmonary issues. So having that information is important in many ways,” he added.

Esenwa advises that any medical center that evaluates acute stroke patients for thrombectomy and is experiencing a COVID-19 surge can use this technique as a screening method for COVID-19.

He pointed out that the Montefiore Health System had a very high rate of COVID-19. That part of New York City was one of the worst hit areas of the world, and the CTA approach for identifying COVID-19 has been validated only in areas with such a high local incidence of COVID. If used in an area of lower prevalence, the accuracy would likely be less.

“We don’t know if this approach would work as well at times of low COVID-19 infection, where any lung findings would be more likely to be caused by other conditions, such as pneumonia due to other causes or congestive heart failure. So there would be more false positives,” Esenwa said.

“But when COVID-19 prevalence is high, the lung findings are much more likely to be a sign of COVID-19 infection. As COVID-19 numbers are now rising for a second time, it is likely to become a useful strategy again.”

The study was approved by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center Institutional Review Board and had no external funding. Esenwa has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
 

This article first appeared on Medscape.com.

A routine scan used to evaluate some acute stroke patients can also detect SARS-CoV-2 infection in the upper lungs, a new study shows.

“As part of the stroke evaluation workup process, we were able to diagnose COVID-19 at the same time at no extra cost or additional workload,” lead author Charles Esenwa, MD, commented to Medscape Medical News. “This is an objective way to screen for COVID-19 in the acute stroke setting,” he added.

Esenwa is an assistant professor and a stroke neurologist at the Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.

He explained that, during the COVID-19 surge earlier this year, assessment of patients with severe acute stroke using computed tomography angiogram (CTA) scans – used to evaluate suitability for endovascular stroke therapy – also showed findings in the upper lung consistent with viral infection in some patients.

“We then assumed that these patients had COVID-19 and took extra precautions to keep them isolated and to protect staff involved in their care. It also allowed us to triage these patients more quickly than waiting for the COVID-19 swab test and arrange the most appropriate care for them,” Esenwa said.

The researchers have now gone back and analyzed their data on acute stroke patients who underwent CTA at their institution during the COVID-19 surge. They found that the changes identified in the lungs were highly specific for diagnosing SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The study was published online on Oct. 29 in Stroke.

“Stroke patients are normally screened for COVID-19 on hospitalization, but the swab test result can take several hours or longer to come back, and it is very useful for us to know if a patient could be infected,” Esenwa noted.

“When we do a CTA, we look at the blood vessels supplying the brain, but the scan also covers the top of the lung, as it starts at the aortic arch. We don’t normally look closely at that area, but we started to notice signs of active lung infection which could have been COVID-19,” he said. “For this paper, we went back to assess how accurate this approach actually was vs. the COVID-19 PCR test.”

The researchers report on 57 patients who presented to three Montefiore Health System hospitals in the Bronx, in New York City, with acute ischemic stroke and who underwent CTA of the head and neck in March and April 2020, the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak there. The patients also underwent PCR testing for COVID-19.

Results showed that 30 patients had a positive COVID-19 test result and that 27 had a negative result. Lung findings highly or very highly suspicious for COVID-19 pneumonia were identified during the CTA scan in 20 (67%) of the COVID-19–positive patients and in two (7%) of the COVID-19–negative patients.

These findings, when used in isolation, yielded a sensitivity of 0.67 and a specificity of 0.93. They had a positive predictive value of 0.19, a negative predictive value of 0.99, and accuracy of 0.92 for the diagnosis of COVID-19.

When apical lung assessment was combined with self-reported clinical symptoms of cough or dyspnea, sensitivity for the diagnosis of COVID-19 for patients presenting to the hospital for acute ischemic stroke increased to 0.83.

“We wondered whether looking at the whole lung would have found better results, but other studies which have done this actually found similar numbers to ours, so we think actually just looking at the top of the lungs, which can be seen in a stroke CTA, may be sufficient,” Esenwa said.

He emphasized the importance of establishing whether an acute stroke patient has COVID-19. “If we had a high suspicion of COVID-19 infection, we would take more precautions during any procedures, such as thrombectomy, and make sure to keep the patient isolated afterwards. It doesn’t necessarily affect the treatment given for stroke, but it affects the safety of the patients and everyone caring for them,” he commented.

Esenwa explained that intubation – which is sometime necessary during thrombectomy – can expose everyone in the room to aerosolized droplets. “So we would take much higher safety precautions if we thought the patient was COVID-19 positive,” he said.

“Early COVID-19 diagnosis also means patients can be given supportive treatment more quickly, admitted to ICU if appropriate, and we can all keep a close eye on pulmonary issues. So having that information is important in many ways,” he added.

Esenwa advises that any medical center that evaluates acute stroke patients for thrombectomy and is experiencing a COVID-19 surge can use this technique as a screening method for COVID-19.

He pointed out that the Montefiore Health System had a very high rate of COVID-19. That part of New York City was one of the worst hit areas of the world, and the CTA approach for identifying COVID-19 has been validated only in areas with such a high local incidence of COVID. If used in an area of lower prevalence, the accuracy would likely be less.

“We don’t know if this approach would work as well at times of low COVID-19 infection, where any lung findings would be more likely to be caused by other conditions, such as pneumonia due to other causes or congestive heart failure. So there would be more false positives,” Esenwa said.

“But when COVID-19 prevalence is high, the lung findings are much more likely to be a sign of COVID-19 infection. As COVID-19 numbers are now rising for a second time, it is likely to become a useful strategy again.”

The study was approved by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center Institutional Review Board and had no external funding. Esenwa has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
 

This article first appeared on Medscape.com.

A routine scan used to evaluate some acute stroke patients can also detect SARS-CoV-2 infection in the upper lungs, a new study shows.

“As part of the stroke evaluation workup process, we were able to diagnose COVID-19 at the same time at no extra cost or additional workload,” lead author Charles Esenwa, MD, commented to Medscape Medical News. “This is an objective way to screen for COVID-19 in the acute stroke setting,” he added.

Esenwa is an assistant professor and a stroke neurologist at the Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.

He explained that, during the COVID-19 surge earlier this year, assessment of patients with severe acute stroke using computed tomography angiogram (CTA) scans – used to evaluate suitability for endovascular stroke therapy – also showed findings in the upper lung consistent with viral infection in some patients.

“We then assumed that these patients had COVID-19 and took extra precautions to keep them isolated and to protect staff involved in their care. It also allowed us to triage these patients more quickly than waiting for the COVID-19 swab test and arrange the most appropriate care for them,” Esenwa said.

The researchers have now gone back and analyzed their data on acute stroke patients who underwent CTA at their institution during the COVID-19 surge. They found that the changes identified in the lungs were highly specific for diagnosing SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The study was published online on Oct. 29 in Stroke.

“Stroke patients are normally screened for COVID-19 on hospitalization, but the swab test result can take several hours or longer to come back, and it is very useful for us to know if a patient could be infected,” Esenwa noted.

“When we do a CTA, we look at the blood vessels supplying the brain, but the scan also covers the top of the lung, as it starts at the aortic arch. We don’t normally look closely at that area, but we started to notice signs of active lung infection which could have been COVID-19,” he said. “For this paper, we went back to assess how accurate this approach actually was vs. the COVID-19 PCR test.”

The researchers report on 57 patients who presented to three Montefiore Health System hospitals in the Bronx, in New York City, with acute ischemic stroke and who underwent CTA of the head and neck in March and April 2020, the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak there. The patients also underwent PCR testing for COVID-19.

Results showed that 30 patients had a positive COVID-19 test result and that 27 had a negative result. Lung findings highly or very highly suspicious for COVID-19 pneumonia were identified during the CTA scan in 20 (67%) of the COVID-19–positive patients and in two (7%) of the COVID-19–negative patients.

These findings, when used in isolation, yielded a sensitivity of 0.67 and a specificity of 0.93. They had a positive predictive value of 0.19, a negative predictive value of 0.99, and accuracy of 0.92 for the diagnosis of COVID-19.

When apical lung assessment was combined with self-reported clinical symptoms of cough or dyspnea, sensitivity for the diagnosis of COVID-19 for patients presenting to the hospital for acute ischemic stroke increased to 0.83.

“We wondered whether looking at the whole lung would have found better results, but other studies which have done this actually found similar numbers to ours, so we think actually just looking at the top of the lungs, which can be seen in a stroke CTA, may be sufficient,” Esenwa said.

He emphasized the importance of establishing whether an acute stroke patient has COVID-19. “If we had a high suspicion of COVID-19 infection, we would take more precautions during any procedures, such as thrombectomy, and make sure to keep the patient isolated afterwards. It doesn’t necessarily affect the treatment given for stroke, but it affects the safety of the patients and everyone caring for them,” he commented.

Esenwa explained that intubation – which is sometime necessary during thrombectomy – can expose everyone in the room to aerosolized droplets. “So we would take much higher safety precautions if we thought the patient was COVID-19 positive,” he said.

“Early COVID-19 diagnosis also means patients can be given supportive treatment more quickly, admitted to ICU if appropriate, and we can all keep a close eye on pulmonary issues. So having that information is important in many ways,” he added.

Esenwa advises that any medical center that evaluates acute stroke patients for thrombectomy and is experiencing a COVID-19 surge can use this technique as a screening method for COVID-19.

He pointed out that the Montefiore Health System had a very high rate of COVID-19. That part of New York City was one of the worst hit areas of the world, and the CTA approach for identifying COVID-19 has been validated only in areas with such a high local incidence of COVID. If used in an area of lower prevalence, the accuracy would likely be less.

“We don’t know if this approach would work as well at times of low COVID-19 infection, where any lung findings would be more likely to be caused by other conditions, such as pneumonia due to other causes or congestive heart failure. So there would be more false positives,” Esenwa said.

“But when COVID-19 prevalence is high, the lung findings are much more likely to be a sign of COVID-19 infection. As COVID-19 numbers are now rising for a second time, it is likely to become a useful strategy again.”

The study was approved by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center Institutional Review Board and had no external funding. Esenwa has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
 

This article first appeared on Medscape.com.

A cumulative 511,000 lives could be lost from COVID-19 in the United States by the end of February 2021, a new prediction study reveals.

However, if universal mask wearing is adopted — defined as 95% of Americans complying with the protective measure — along with social distancing mandates as warranted, nearly 130,000 of those lives could be saved.

And if even 85% of Americans comply, an additional 95,800 lives would be spared before March of next year, researchers at the University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) report.

The study was published online October 23 in Nature Medicine.

“The study is sound and makes the case for mandatory mask policies,” said Arthur L. Caplan, PhD, a professor of bioethics at NYU Langone Health in New York City, who frequently provides commentary for Medscape.

Without mandatory mask requirements, he added, “we will see a pandemic slaughter and an overwhelmed healthcare system and workforce.”

The IHME team evaluated COVID-19 data for cases and related deaths between February 1 and September 21. Based on this data, they predicted the likely future of SARS-CoV-2 infections on a state level from September 22, 2020, to February 2021.

An Optimistic Projection

Lead author Robert C. Reiner Jr and colleagues looked at five scenarios. For example, they calculated likely deaths associated with COVID-19 if adoption of mask and social distancing recommendations were nearly universal. They note that Singapore achieved a 95% compliance rate with masks and used this as their “best-case scenario” model.

An estimated 129,574 (range, 85,284–170,867) additional lives could be saved if 95% of Americans wore masks in public, their research reveals. This optimistic scenario includes a “plausible reference” in which any US state reaching 8 COVID-19 deaths per 1 million residents would enact 6 weeks of social distancing mandates (SDMs).

Achieving this level of mask compliance in the United States “could be sufficient to ameliorate the worst effects of epidemic resurgences in many states,” the researchers note.

In contrast, the proportion of Americans wearing masks in public as of September 22 was 49%, according to IHME data.
 

Universal mask use unlikely

“I’m not a modeling expert, but it is an interesting, and as far as I can judge, well-conducted study which looks, state by state, at what might happen in various scenarios around masking policies going forward — and in particular the effect that mandated masking might have,” Trish Greenhalgh, MD, told Medscape Medical News.  

“However, the scenario is a thought experiment. Near-universal mask use is not going to happen in the USA, nor indeed in any individual state, right now, given how emotive the issue has become,” added Greenhalgh, professor in the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at Oxford University, UK. She was not affiliated with the study.

“Hence, whilst I am broadly supportive of the science,” she said, “I’m not confident that this paper will be able to change policy.”
 

Other ‘What if?’ scenarios

The authors also predicted the mortality implications associated with lower adherence to masks, the presence or absence of SDMs, and what could happen if mandates continue to ease at their current rate.

For example, they considered a scenario with less-than-universal mask use in public, 85%, along with SDMs being reinstated based on the mortality rate threshold. In this instance, they found an additional 95,814 (range, 60,731–133,077) lives could be spared by February 28.

Another calculation looked at outcomes if 95% of Americans wore masks going forward without states instituting SDMs at any point. In this case, the researchers predict that 490,437 Americans would die from COVID-19 by February 2021.

A fourth analysis revealed what would happen without greater mask use if the mortality threshold triggered 6 weeks of SDMs as warranted. Under this ‘plausible reference’ calculation, a total 511,373 Americans would die from COVID-19 by the end of February.

A fifth scenario predicted potential mortality if states continue easing SDMs at the current pace. “This is an alternative scenario to the more probable situation where states are expected to respond to an impending health crisis by reinstating some SDMs,” the authors note. The predicted number of American deaths appears more dire in this calculation. The investigators predict cumulative total deaths could reach 1,053,206 (range, 759,693–1,452,397) by the end of February 2021.

The death toll would likely vary among states in this scenario. California, Florida, and Pennsylvania would like account for approximately one third of all deaths.

All the modeling scenarios considered other factors including pneumonia seasonality, mobility, testing rates, and mask use per capita.
 

“I have seen the IHME study and I agree with the broad conclusions,” Richard Stutt, PhD, of the Epidemiology and Modelling Group at the University of Cambridge, UK, told Medscape Medical News.

“Case numbers are climbing in the US, and without further intervention, there will be a significant number of deaths over the coming months,” he said.

Masks are low cost and widely available, Stutt said. “I am hopeful that even if masks are not widely adopted, we will not see as many deaths as predicted here, as these outbreaks can be significantly reduced by increased social distancing or lockdowns.”

“However this comes at a far higher economic cost than the use of masks, and still requires action,” added Stutt, who authored a study in June that modeled facemasks in combination with “lock-down” measures for managing the COVID-19 pandemic.

Modeling study results depend on the assumptions researchers make, and the IHME team rightly tested a number of different assumptions, Greenhalgh said.

“The key conclusion,” she added, “is here: ‘The implementation of SDMs as soon as individual states reach a threshold of 8 daily deaths per million could dramatically ameliorate the effects of the disease; achieving near-universal mask use could delay, or in many states, possibly prevent, this threshold from being reached and has the potential to save the most lives while minimizing damage to the economy.’ “

“This is a useful piece of information and I think is borne out by their data,” added Greenhalgh, lead author of an April study on face masks for the public during the pandemic.

You can visit the IHME website for the most current mortality projections.

Caplan, Greenhalgh, and Stutt have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

This article first appeared on Medscape.com.

A cumulative 511,000 lives could be lost from COVID-19 in the United States by the end of February 2021, a new prediction study reveals.

However, if universal mask wearing is adopted — defined as 95% of Americans complying with the protective measure — along with social distancing mandates as warranted, nearly 130,000 of those lives could be saved.

And if even 85% of Americans comply, an additional 95,800 lives would be spared before March of next year, researchers at the University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) report.

The study was published online October 23 in Nature Medicine.

“The study is sound and makes the case for mandatory mask policies,” said Arthur L. Caplan, PhD, a professor of bioethics at NYU Langone Health in New York City, who frequently provides commentary for Medscape.

Without mandatory mask requirements, he added, “we will see a pandemic slaughter and an overwhelmed healthcare system and workforce.”

The IHME team evaluated COVID-19 data for cases and related deaths between February 1 and September 21. Based on this data, they predicted the likely future of SARS-CoV-2 infections on a state level from September 22, 2020, to February 2021.

An Optimistic Projection

Lead author Robert C. Reiner Jr and colleagues looked at five scenarios. For example, they calculated likely deaths associated with COVID-19 if adoption of mask and social distancing recommendations were nearly universal. They note that Singapore achieved a 95% compliance rate with masks and used this as their “best-case scenario” model.

An estimated 129,574 (range, 85,284–170,867) additional lives could be saved if 95% of Americans wore masks in public, their research reveals. This optimistic scenario includes a “plausible reference” in which any US state reaching 8 COVID-19 deaths per 1 million residents would enact 6 weeks of social distancing mandates (SDMs).

Achieving this level of mask compliance in the United States “could be sufficient to ameliorate the worst effects of epidemic resurgences in many states,” the researchers note.

In contrast, the proportion of Americans wearing masks in public as of September 22 was 49%, according to IHME data.
 

Universal mask use unlikely

“I’m not a modeling expert, but it is an interesting, and as far as I can judge, well-conducted study which looks, state by state, at what might happen in various scenarios around masking policies going forward — and in particular the effect that mandated masking might have,” Trish Greenhalgh, MD, told Medscape Medical News.  

“However, the scenario is a thought experiment. Near-universal mask use is not going to happen in the USA, nor indeed in any individual state, right now, given how emotive the issue has become,” added Greenhalgh, professor in the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at Oxford University, UK. She was not affiliated with the study.

“Hence, whilst I am broadly supportive of the science,” she said, “I’m not confident that this paper will be able to change policy.”
 

Other ‘What if?’ scenarios

The authors also predicted the mortality implications associated with lower adherence to masks, the presence or absence of SDMs, and what could happen if mandates continue to ease at their current rate.

For example, they considered a scenario with less-than-universal mask use in public, 85%, along with SDMs being reinstated based on the mortality rate threshold. In this instance, they found an additional 95,814 (range, 60,731–133,077) lives could be spared by February 28.

Another calculation looked at outcomes if 95% of Americans wore masks going forward without states instituting SDMs at any point. In this case, the researchers predict that 490,437 Americans would die from COVID-19 by February 2021.

A fourth analysis revealed what would happen without greater mask use if the mortality threshold triggered 6 weeks of SDMs as warranted. Under this ‘plausible reference’ calculation, a total 511,373 Americans would die from COVID-19 by the end of February.

A fifth scenario predicted potential mortality if states continue easing SDMs at the current pace. “This is an alternative scenario to the more probable situation where states are expected to respond to an impending health crisis by reinstating some SDMs,” the authors note. The predicted number of American deaths appears more dire in this calculation. The investigators predict cumulative total deaths could reach 1,053,206 (range, 759,693–1,452,397) by the end of February 2021.

The death toll would likely vary among states in this scenario. California, Florida, and Pennsylvania would like account for approximately one third of all deaths.

All the modeling scenarios considered other factors including pneumonia seasonality, mobility, testing rates, and mask use per capita.
 

“I have seen the IHME study and I agree with the broad conclusions,” Richard Stutt, PhD, of the Epidemiology and Modelling Group at the University of Cambridge, UK, told Medscape Medical News.

“Case numbers are climbing in the US, and without further intervention, there will be a significant number of deaths over the coming months,” he said.

Masks are low cost and widely available, Stutt said. “I am hopeful that even if masks are not widely adopted, we will not see as many deaths as predicted here, as these outbreaks can be significantly reduced by increased social distancing or lockdowns.”

“However this comes at a far higher economic cost than the use of masks, and still requires action,” added Stutt, who authored a study in June that modeled facemasks in combination with “lock-down” measures for managing the COVID-19 pandemic.

Modeling study results depend on the assumptions researchers make, and the IHME team rightly tested a number of different assumptions, Greenhalgh said.

“The key conclusion,” she added, “is here: ‘The implementation of SDMs as soon as individual states reach a threshold of 8 daily deaths per million could dramatically ameliorate the effects of the disease; achieving near-universal mask use could delay, or in many states, possibly prevent, this threshold from being reached and has the potential to save the most lives while minimizing damage to the economy.’ “

“This is a useful piece of information and I think is borne out by their data,” added Greenhalgh, lead author of an April study on face masks for the public during the pandemic.

You can visit the IHME website for the most current mortality projections.

Caplan, Greenhalgh, and Stutt have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

This article first appeared on Medscape.com.

A cumulative 511,000 lives could be lost from COVID-19 in the United States by the end of February 2021, a new prediction study reveals.

However, if universal mask wearing is adopted — defined as 95% of Americans complying with the protective measure — along with social distancing mandates as warranted, nearly 130,000 of those lives could be saved.

And if even 85% of Americans comply, an additional 95,800 lives would be spared before March of next year, researchers at the University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) report.

The study was published online October 23 in Nature Medicine.

“The study is sound and makes the case for mandatory mask policies,” said Arthur L. Caplan, PhD, a professor of bioethics at NYU Langone Health in New York City, who frequently provides commentary for Medscape.

Without mandatory mask requirements, he added, “we will see a pandemic slaughter and an overwhelmed healthcare system and workforce.”

The IHME team evaluated COVID-19 data for cases and related deaths between February 1 and September 21. Based on this data, they predicted the likely future of SARS-CoV-2 infections on a state level from September 22, 2020, to February 2021.

An Optimistic Projection

Lead author Robert C. Reiner Jr and colleagues looked at five scenarios. For example, they calculated likely deaths associated with COVID-19 if adoption of mask and social distancing recommendations were nearly universal. They note that Singapore achieved a 95% compliance rate with masks and used this as their “best-case scenario” model.

An estimated 129,574 (range, 85,284–170,867) additional lives could be saved if 95% of Americans wore masks in public, their research reveals. This optimistic scenario includes a “plausible reference” in which any US state reaching 8 COVID-19 deaths per 1 million residents would enact 6 weeks of social distancing mandates (SDMs).

Achieving this level of mask compliance in the United States “could be sufficient to ameliorate the worst effects of epidemic resurgences in many states,” the researchers note.

In contrast, the proportion of Americans wearing masks in public as of September 22 was 49%, according to IHME data.
 

Universal mask use unlikely

“I’m not a modeling expert, but it is an interesting, and as far as I can judge, well-conducted study which looks, state by state, at what might happen in various scenarios around masking policies going forward — and in particular the effect that mandated masking might have,” Trish Greenhalgh, MD, told Medscape Medical News.  

“However, the scenario is a thought experiment. Near-universal mask use is not going to happen in the USA, nor indeed in any individual state, right now, given how emotive the issue has become,” added Greenhalgh, professor in the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at Oxford University, UK. She was not affiliated with the study.

“Hence, whilst I am broadly supportive of the science,” she said, “I’m not confident that this paper will be able to change policy.”
 

Other ‘What if?’ scenarios

The authors also predicted the mortality implications associated with lower adherence to masks, the presence or absence of SDMs, and what could happen if mandates continue to ease at their current rate.

For example, they considered a scenario with less-than-universal mask use in public, 85%, along with SDMs being reinstated based on the mortality rate threshold. In this instance, they found an additional 95,814 (range, 60,731–133,077) lives could be spared by February 28.

Another calculation looked at outcomes if 95% of Americans wore masks going forward without states instituting SDMs at any point. In this case, the researchers predict that 490,437 Americans would die from COVID-19 by February 2021.

A fourth analysis revealed what would happen without greater mask use if the mortality threshold triggered 6 weeks of SDMs as warranted. Under this ‘plausible reference’ calculation, a total 511,373 Americans would die from COVID-19 by the end of February.

A fifth scenario predicted potential mortality if states continue easing SDMs at the current pace. “This is an alternative scenario to the more probable situation where states are expected to respond to an impending health crisis by reinstating some SDMs,” the authors note. The predicted number of American deaths appears more dire in this calculation. The investigators predict cumulative total deaths could reach 1,053,206 (range, 759,693–1,452,397) by the end of February 2021.

The death toll would likely vary among states in this scenario. California, Florida, and Pennsylvania would like account for approximately one third of all deaths.

All the modeling scenarios considered other factors including pneumonia seasonality, mobility, testing rates, and mask use per capita.
 

“I have seen the IHME study and I agree with the broad conclusions,” Richard Stutt, PhD, of the Epidemiology and Modelling Group at the University of Cambridge, UK, told Medscape Medical News.

“Case numbers are climbing in the US, and without further intervention, there will be a significant number of deaths over the coming months,” he said.

Masks are low cost and widely available, Stutt said. “I am hopeful that even if masks are not widely adopted, we will not see as many deaths as predicted here, as these outbreaks can be significantly reduced by increased social distancing or lockdowns.”

“However this comes at a far higher economic cost than the use of masks, and still requires action,” added Stutt, who authored a study in June that modeled facemasks in combination with “lock-down” measures for managing the COVID-19 pandemic.

Modeling study results depend on the assumptions researchers make, and the IHME team rightly tested a number of different assumptions, Greenhalgh said.

“The key conclusion,” she added, “is here: ‘The implementation of SDMs as soon as individual states reach a threshold of 8 daily deaths per million could dramatically ameliorate the effects of the disease; achieving near-universal mask use could delay, or in many states, possibly prevent, this threshold from being reached and has the potential to save the most lives while minimizing damage to the economy.’ “

“This is a useful piece of information and I think is borne out by their data,” added Greenhalgh, lead author of an April study on face masks for the public during the pandemic.

You can visit the IHME website for the most current mortality projections.

Caplan, Greenhalgh, and Stutt have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

This article first appeared on Medscape.com.

A novel program that strengthens bonds, boosts morale, and encourages supportive networks among US Air Force personnel cuts suicidal ideation and depressive symptoms after 1 month, new research shows.

The so-called Wingman-Connect initiative also had a beneficial impact on work performance, and the benefits were apparent at 6-month follow-up.

“This study suggests that group training can teach skills that help with occupational functioning and reduce the likelihood of experiencing elevated depression and suicidal ideation, at least in the short term,” lead author Peter A. Wyman, PhD, professor, department of psychiatry, University of Rochester, New York, told Medscape Medical News.

The study was published online Oct. 21 in JAMA Network Open.
 

Significant rise in suicide rates

Suicide rates among active duty military populations have increased “significantly” in the past 15 years and have exceeded rates for the general population when comparing groups of the same age and gender, said Wyman.

The study included new personnel who were taking classes at a single training center between October 2017 and October 2019.

Participants were randomly assigned to the Wingman-Connect program or to a stress management program.

The Wingman-Connect intervention involved three 2-hour blocks of group classes that focused on building skills in areas such as healthy relationships and maintaining balance. Group exercises emphasized cohesion, shared purpose, and the value of a healthy unit.

Participants in the stress management group received an overview of the stress response system, information on the effect of stress on health, and cognitive and behavioral strategies to reduce stress.

Primary outcomes included the scores on the suicide scale and the depression inventory of the Computerized Adaptive Test for Mental Health.

The study included 1,485 participants (82.3% men; mean age, 20.9 years). At the 1-month follow-up, participants in Wingman-Connect classes reported less severe suicidal ideation (effect size, −0.23; 95% confidence interval, −39 to −0.09; P = .001) and depressive symptoms (ES, −0.24; 95% CI, −0.41 to −0.08; P = .002).

Unlike most suicide prevention programs, the Wingman intervention didn’t target only high-risk participants. “You’d expect smaller effect sizes” because many people were already doing well, said Wyman.

He noted that the effects at 1 month were similar to other state-of-the-art prevention programs.

Another primary endpoint was self-reported occupational impairment. A poor outcome here, said Wyman, could mean having to repeat a class or falling short of expectations behaviorally or academically.

Investigators found a 50% reduction – from approximately 10% to 5% – among the participants in the Wingman-Connect group who had occupational problems or performance concerns, said Wyman.

About 84% of participants in both study arms participated in the 6-month follow-up. At this time point, Wingman-Connect participants reported significantly lower depressive symptoms (ES, −0.16; 95% CI, −0.34 to −0.02; P = .03), but suicidal ideation severity scores were not significantly lower (ES, −0.13; 95% CI, −0.29 to 0.01; P = .06).
 

Universally beneficial

A beneficial effect on occupational problems was not evident after 6 months. This suggests that this type of training should be continued in later stages of military careers, said Wyman.

“This is not a one-time inoculation that will likely prevent all future problems,” he said.

Study participants experienced improvements in protective factors such as cohesion, morale, and bonds to classmates. The program was also associated with reduced anxiety and anger.

Overall, the Wingman-Connect group was about 20% less likely than the stress management group to report elevated depression at either follow-up period. In addition, on average, participants in the active intervention group were 19% less likely to have elevated suicidal ideation scores, although the difference was not significant.

The “logical interpretation” of this lack of statistical significance is that because depression was more common than suicidal ideation, “the intervention could have a slightly larger and more lasting effect on depression,” said Wyman.

There was no indication that men or women or those who started out at higher risk experienced greater benefit.

“Overall, the effects seemed to be distributed across airmen, independent of how they started,” said Wyman.

Wyman emphasized the unique nature of the Wingman-Connect program. “It’s universal prevention for all airmen – for those thriving and those struggling,” he said.

“We don’t know who necessarily will become at risk later on, or 6 months later, so it’s important to provide this kind of training for everyone.”

The “key mechanism” by which the program may prevent mental health problems is use of “units of military people working together day to day,” said Wyman.

The study did not reveal whether the intervention reduced suicidal behavior. This, say the authors, will need to be determined in future studies, as will determining which personnel are most likely to benefit.
 

A ‘particular challenge’

In an accompanying editorial, Roy H. Perlis, MD, department of psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, both in Boston, and Stephan D. Fihn, MD, department of medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, noted that suicide represents a “particular challenge” in the military.

This is “because soldiers are placed in extremely stressful situations, often without adequate physical or emotional support.”

The new study “adds to a literature that group-based interventions are effective in reducing depressive symptoms and may have advantages in resource-constrained environments,” they write.

Perlis and Finn note that it remains to be seen whether targeted strategies to reduce suicide “are worthwhile, rather than simply developing better treatments for depression.”

Commenting on the study for Medscape Medical News, Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, MD, former military psychiatrist and chair of the department of psychiatry, Medstar Washington Hospital Center, Washington, D.C., said the study “is based on quite a sound premise.”

Ritchie referred to the “long history” of research “repeatedly showing that units with good cohesion and morale have fewer difficulties of all kinds.”

However, the current study didn’t investigate the “converse of that,” said Ritchie. “There’s a high likelihood for suicidal ideation among those who are expelled” from the unit for various reasons.

Ritchie noted that a variety of different prevention initiatives have been launched in all military services over the years.

“Often, they have worked for a little while when there’s a champion behind them and there’s a lot of enthusiasm, and then they kind of fade out,” she said.

Ritchie agreed that such initiatives should continue throughout a person’s military career. She noted that suicide risk is elevated during periods of transition, for example, “leaving training base and going to your first duty station,” as well as when approaching retirement.

She appreciated the universal nature of the approach used in the study.

“Often, suicides are in those who have not been identified as high risk,” she said. However, she questioned whether the study’s follow-up period was long enough.

The study was supported by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs. Wyman, Perlis, and Cameron have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

This article first appeared on Medscape.com.

A novel program that strengthens bonds, boosts morale, and encourages supportive networks among US Air Force personnel cuts suicidal ideation and depressive symptoms after 1 month, new research shows.

The so-called Wingman-Connect initiative also had a beneficial impact on work performance, and the benefits were apparent at 6-month follow-up.

“This study suggests that group training can teach skills that help with occupational functioning and reduce the likelihood of experiencing elevated depression and suicidal ideation, at least in the short term,” lead author Peter A. Wyman, PhD, professor, department of psychiatry, University of Rochester, New York, told Medscape Medical News.

The study was published online Oct. 21 in JAMA Network Open.
 

Significant rise in suicide rates

Suicide rates among active duty military populations have increased “significantly” in the past 15 years and have exceeded rates for the general population when comparing groups of the same age and gender, said Wyman.

The study included new personnel who were taking classes at a single training center between October 2017 and October 2019.

Participants were randomly assigned to the Wingman-Connect program or to a stress management program.

The Wingman-Connect intervention involved three 2-hour blocks of group classes that focused on building skills in areas such as healthy relationships and maintaining balance. Group exercises emphasized cohesion, shared purpose, and the value of a healthy unit.

Participants in the stress management group received an overview of the stress response system, information on the effect of stress on health, and cognitive and behavioral strategies to reduce stress.

Primary outcomes included the scores on the suicide scale and the depression inventory of the Computerized Adaptive Test for Mental Health.

The study included 1,485 participants (82.3% men; mean age, 20.9 years). At the 1-month follow-up, participants in Wingman-Connect classes reported less severe suicidal ideation (effect size, −0.23; 95% confidence interval, −39 to −0.09; P = .001) and depressive symptoms (ES, −0.24; 95% CI, −0.41 to −0.08; P = .002).

Unlike most suicide prevention programs, the Wingman intervention didn’t target only high-risk participants. “You’d expect smaller effect sizes” because many people were already doing well, said Wyman.

He noted that the effects at 1 month were similar to other state-of-the-art prevention programs.

Another primary endpoint was self-reported occupational impairment. A poor outcome here, said Wyman, could mean having to repeat a class or falling short of expectations behaviorally or academically.

Investigators found a 50% reduction – from approximately 10% to 5% – among the participants in the Wingman-Connect group who had occupational problems or performance concerns, said Wyman.

About 84% of participants in both study arms participated in the 6-month follow-up. At this time point, Wingman-Connect participants reported significantly lower depressive symptoms (ES, −0.16; 95% CI, −0.34 to −0.02; P = .03), but suicidal ideation severity scores were not significantly lower (ES, −0.13; 95% CI, −0.29 to 0.01; P = .06).
 

Universally beneficial

A beneficial effect on occupational problems was not evident after 6 months. This suggests that this type of training should be continued in later stages of military careers, said Wyman.

“This is not a one-time inoculation that will likely prevent all future problems,” he said.

Study participants experienced improvements in protective factors such as cohesion, morale, and bonds to classmates. The program was also associated with reduced anxiety and anger.

Overall, the Wingman-Connect group was about 20% less likely than the stress management group to report elevated depression at either follow-up period. In addition, on average, participants in the active intervention group were 19% less likely to have elevated suicidal ideation scores, although the difference was not significant.

The “logical interpretation” of this lack of statistical significance is that because depression was more common than suicidal ideation, “the intervention could have a slightly larger and more lasting effect on depression,” said Wyman.

There was no indication that men or women or those who started out at higher risk experienced greater benefit.

“Overall, the effects seemed to be distributed across airmen, independent of how they started,” said Wyman.

Wyman emphasized the unique nature of the Wingman-Connect program. “It’s universal prevention for all airmen – for those thriving and those struggling,” he said.

“We don’t know who necessarily will become at risk later on, or 6 months later, so it’s important to provide this kind of training for everyone.”

The “key mechanism” by which the program may prevent mental health problems is use of “units of military people working together day to day,” said Wyman.

The study did not reveal whether the intervention reduced suicidal behavior. This, say the authors, will need to be determined in future studies, as will determining which personnel are most likely to benefit.
 

A ‘particular challenge’

In an accompanying editorial, Roy H. Perlis, MD, department of psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, both in Boston, and Stephan D. Fihn, MD, department of medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, noted that suicide represents a “particular challenge” in the military.

This is “because soldiers are placed in extremely stressful situations, often without adequate physical or emotional support.”

The new study “adds to a literature that group-based interventions are effective in reducing depressive symptoms and may have advantages in resource-constrained environments,” they write.

Perlis and Finn note that it remains to be seen whether targeted strategies to reduce suicide “are worthwhile, rather than simply developing better treatments for depression.”

Commenting on the study for Medscape Medical News, Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, MD, former military psychiatrist and chair of the department of psychiatry, Medstar Washington Hospital Center, Washington, D.C., said the study “is based on quite a sound premise.”

Ritchie referred to the “long history” of research “repeatedly showing that units with good cohesion and morale have fewer difficulties of all kinds.”

However, the current study didn’t investigate the “converse of that,” said Ritchie. “There’s a high likelihood for suicidal ideation among those who are expelled” from the unit for various reasons.

Ritchie noted that a variety of different prevention initiatives have been launched in all military services over the years.

“Often, they have worked for a little while when there’s a champion behind them and there’s a lot of enthusiasm, and then they kind of fade out,” she said.

Ritchie agreed that such initiatives should continue throughout a person’s military career. She noted that suicide risk is elevated during periods of transition, for example, “leaving training base and going to your first duty station,” as well as when approaching retirement.

She appreciated the universal nature of the approach used in the study.

“Often, suicides are in those who have not been identified as high risk,” she said. However, she questioned whether the study’s follow-up period was long enough.

The study was supported by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs. Wyman, Perlis, and Cameron have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

This article first appeared on Medscape.com.

A novel program that strengthens bonds, boosts morale, and encourages supportive networks among US Air Force personnel cuts suicidal ideation and depressive symptoms after 1 month, new research shows.

The so-called Wingman-Connect initiative also had a beneficial impact on work performance, and the benefits were apparent at 6-month follow-up.

“This study suggests that group training can teach skills that help with occupational functioning and reduce the likelihood of experiencing elevated depression and suicidal ideation, at least in the short term,” lead author Peter A. Wyman, PhD, professor, department of psychiatry, University of Rochester, New York, told Medscape Medical News.

The study was published online Oct. 21 in JAMA Network Open.
 

Significant rise in suicide rates

Suicide rates among active duty military populations have increased “significantly” in the past 15 years and have exceeded rates for the general population when comparing groups of the same age and gender, said Wyman.

The study included new personnel who were taking classes at a single training center between October 2017 and October 2019.

Participants were randomly assigned to the Wingman-Connect program or to a stress management program.

The Wingman-Connect intervention involved three 2-hour blocks of group classes that focused on building skills in areas such as healthy relationships and maintaining balance. Group exercises emphasized cohesion, shared purpose, and the value of a healthy unit.

Participants in the stress management group received an overview of the stress response system, information on the effect of stress on health, and cognitive and behavioral strategies to reduce stress.

Primary outcomes included the scores on the suicide scale and the depression inventory of the Computerized Adaptive Test for Mental Health.

The study included 1,485 participants (82.3% men; mean age, 20.9 years). At the 1-month follow-up, participants in Wingman-Connect classes reported less severe suicidal ideation (effect size, −0.23; 95% confidence interval, −39 to −0.09; P = .001) and depressive symptoms (ES, −0.24; 95% CI, −0.41 to −0.08; P = .002).

Unlike most suicide prevention programs, the Wingman intervention didn’t target only high-risk participants. “You’d expect smaller effect sizes” because many people were already doing well, said Wyman.

He noted that the effects at 1 month were similar to other state-of-the-art prevention programs.

Another primary endpoint was self-reported occupational impairment. A poor outcome here, said Wyman, could mean having to repeat a class or falling short of expectations behaviorally or academically.

Investigators found a 50% reduction – from approximately 10% to 5% – among the participants in the Wingman-Connect group who had occupational problems or performance concerns, said Wyman.

About 84% of participants in both study arms participated in the 6-month follow-up. At this time point, Wingman-Connect participants reported significantly lower depressive symptoms (ES, −0.16; 95% CI, −0.34 to −0.02; P = .03), but suicidal ideation severity scores were not significantly lower (ES, −0.13; 95% CI, −0.29 to 0.01; P = .06).
 

Universally beneficial

A beneficial effect on occupational problems was not evident after 6 months. This suggests that this type of training should be continued in later stages of military careers, said Wyman.

“This is not a one-time inoculation that will likely prevent all future problems,” he said.

Study participants experienced improvements in protective factors such as cohesion, morale, and bonds to classmates. The program was also associated with reduced anxiety and anger.

Overall, the Wingman-Connect group was about 20% less likely than the stress management group to report elevated depression at either follow-up period. In addition, on average, participants in the active intervention group were 19% less likely to have elevated suicidal ideation scores, although the difference was not significant.

The “logical interpretation” of this lack of statistical significance is that because depression was more common than suicidal ideation, “the intervention could have a slightly larger and more lasting effect on depression,” said Wyman.

There was no indication that men or women or those who started out at higher risk experienced greater benefit.

“Overall, the effects seemed to be distributed across airmen, independent of how they started,” said Wyman.

Wyman emphasized the unique nature of the Wingman-Connect program. “It’s universal prevention for all airmen – for those thriving and those struggling,” he said.

“We don’t know who necessarily will become at risk later on, or 6 months later, so it’s important to provide this kind of training for everyone.”

The “key mechanism” by which the program may prevent mental health problems is use of “units of military people working together day to day,” said Wyman.

The study did not reveal whether the intervention reduced suicidal behavior. This, say the authors, will need to be determined in future studies, as will determining which personnel are most likely to benefit.
 

A ‘particular challenge’

In an accompanying editorial, Roy H. Perlis, MD, department of psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, both in Boston, and Stephan D. Fihn, MD, department of medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, noted that suicide represents a “particular challenge” in the military.

This is “because soldiers are placed in extremely stressful situations, often without adequate physical or emotional support.”

The new study “adds to a literature that group-based interventions are effective in reducing depressive symptoms and may have advantages in resource-constrained environments,” they write.

Perlis and Finn note that it remains to be seen whether targeted strategies to reduce suicide “are worthwhile, rather than simply developing better treatments for depression.”

Commenting on the study for Medscape Medical News, Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, MD, former military psychiatrist and chair of the department of psychiatry, Medstar Washington Hospital Center, Washington, D.C., said the study “is based on quite a sound premise.”

Ritchie referred to the “long history” of research “repeatedly showing that units with good cohesion and morale have fewer difficulties of all kinds.”

However, the current study didn’t investigate the “converse of that,” said Ritchie. “There’s a high likelihood for suicidal ideation among those who are expelled” from the unit for various reasons.

Ritchie noted that a variety of different prevention initiatives have been launched in all military services over the years.

“Often, they have worked for a little while when there’s a champion behind them and there’s a lot of enthusiasm, and then they kind of fade out,” she said.

Ritchie agreed that such initiatives should continue throughout a person’s military career. She noted that suicide risk is elevated during periods of transition, for example, “leaving training base and going to your first duty station,” as well as when approaching retirement.

She appreciated the universal nature of the approach used in the study.

“Often, suicides are in those who have not been identified as high risk,” she said. However, she questioned whether the study’s follow-up period was long enough.

The study was supported by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs. Wyman, Perlis, and Cameron have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

This article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Half of Chinese American parents and their children report having experienced an in-person episode of racial discrimination related to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to results from a survey study.

In the United States, where public officials continue to refer to SARS-CoV-2 as the “China virus” and have often sought to draw attention to its origins in Wuhan, China, “the associations between discrimination triggered by the racialization of this acute public health crisis and mental health are unknown,” Charissa S.L. Cheah, PhD, of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and colleagues wrote.

For their research published Oct. 29 in Pediatrics, Dr. Cheah and colleagues recruited a cohort of 543 Chinese American parents of school-age children, and 230 of their children aged 10-18 years, to complete online surveys between mid-March and late May 2020. Parents in the cohort were largely foreign born, with all identifying as ethnically Chinese, while their children were mostly U.S. born.
 

Evidence of discrimination against Chinese Americans

Half of parents and their children (51% of parents and 50% of youth) reported experiencing at least one in-person incident of direct discrimination (assessed using questions derived from a validated scale of racial aggression) related to the pandemic. Dr. Cheah and colleagues also reported a high incidence of direct discrimination online (32% of parents and 46% of youth). Additionally, the researchers measured reports of vicarious or indirect discrimination – such as hearing jokes or disparaging remarks about one’s ethnic group – which they used a different adapted scale to capture. More than three-quarters of the cohort reported such experiences.

The experiences of discrimination likely bore on the mental health of both parents and youth. Using a series of instruments designed to measure overall psychological well-being as well as symptoms of depression, anxiety, and certain emotional and behavioral outcomes, Dr. Cheah and colleagues reported significant negative associations between direct online or in-person discrimination and psychological health. For parents and children alike, anxiety and depressive symptoms were positively associated with all varieties of discrimination experiences measured in the study.

About a fifth of the youth in the study were deemed, based on the symptom scales used in the study, to have an elevated risk of clinically significant mental health problems, higher than the 10%-15% that would be expected for these age groups in the United States.

“This study revealed that a high percentage of Chinese American parents and their children personally experienced or witnessed anti-Chinese or anti–Asian American racial discrimination both online and in person due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” the investigators wrote. “Most respondents reported directly experiencing or witnessing racial discrimination against other Chinese or Asian American individuals due to COVID-19 at least once.”

Dr. Cheah and colleagues noted that their cross-sectional study did not lend itself to causal interpretations and was vulnerable to certain types of reporting bias. Nonetheless, they argued, as the pandemic continues, “pediatricians should be sensitive to the potential mental health needs of Chinese American youth and their parents related to various forms of racism, in addition to other stressors, as the foundations of perceptions of racial-ethnic discrimination and their consequences may be set during this period.”
 

COVID-19 didn’t only bring infection

In an accompanying editorial, Tina L. Cheng, MD, of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and her daughter Alison M. Conca-Cheng, a medical student at Brown University, Providence, R.I., remarked that the study’s findings were consistent with recent research that found “4 in 10 Americans reported that it has become more common since COVID-19 for people to express racist views about Asian Americans,” and also described an increase in complaints of discriminatory experiences by Asian Americans.

In this context, a link to poor mental health “should be no surprise,” Dr. Cheng and Ms. Conca-Cheng argued, and urged pediatricians to consult the American Academy of Pediatrics’ 2019 policy statement on racism and on child and adolescent health. “It calls for us to optimize clinical practice, improve workforce development and professional education, strengthen research, and deploy systems through community engagement, advocacy, and public policy.”

David Rettew, MD, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and associate professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the University of Vermont, Burlington, called the study’s main points “clear and disturbing.”

“While it is difficult to find much in the way here of a silver lining, these alarming reports have helped people working in health care and mental health to understand racism as another form of trauma and abuse which, like other types, can have real negative effects on health,” Dr. Rettew said in an interview. “The more we as mental health professions ask about racism and offer resources for people who have experienced it, just as we would people who have endured other types of trauma, the more we can help people heal. That said, it would be better just to stop this from happening in the first place.”

Dr. Cheah and colleagues’ study was supported by a National Science Foundation grant. The investigators disclosed no conflicts of interest. Dr. Cheng and Ms. Conca-Cheng disclosed no financial conflicts of interest related to their editorial. Dr. Rettew said he had no relevant financial disclosures.

SOURCE: Cheah CSL et al. Pediatrics. 2020;146(5):e2020021816.

Half of Chinese American parents and their children report having experienced an in-person episode of racial discrimination related to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to results from a survey study.

In the United States, where public officials continue to refer to SARS-CoV-2 as the “China virus” and have often sought to draw attention to its origins in Wuhan, China, “the associations between discrimination triggered by the racialization of this acute public health crisis and mental health are unknown,” Charissa S.L. Cheah, PhD, of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and colleagues wrote.

For their research published Oct. 29 in Pediatrics, Dr. Cheah and colleagues recruited a cohort of 543 Chinese American parents of school-age children, and 230 of their children aged 10-18 years, to complete online surveys between mid-March and late May 2020. Parents in the cohort were largely foreign born, with all identifying as ethnically Chinese, while their children were mostly U.S. born.
 

Evidence of discrimination against Chinese Americans

Half of parents and their children (51% of parents and 50% of youth) reported experiencing at least one in-person incident of direct discrimination (assessed using questions derived from a validated scale of racial aggression) related to the pandemic. Dr. Cheah and colleagues also reported a high incidence of direct discrimination online (32% of parents and 46% of youth). Additionally, the researchers measured reports of vicarious or indirect discrimination – such as hearing jokes or disparaging remarks about one’s ethnic group – which they used a different adapted scale to capture. More than three-quarters of the cohort reported such experiences.

The experiences of discrimination likely bore on the mental health of both parents and youth. Using a series of instruments designed to measure overall psychological well-being as well as symptoms of depression, anxiety, and certain emotional and behavioral outcomes, Dr. Cheah and colleagues reported significant negative associations between direct online or in-person discrimination and psychological health. For parents and children alike, anxiety and depressive symptoms were positively associated with all varieties of discrimination experiences measured in the study.

About a fifth of the youth in the study were deemed, based on the symptom scales used in the study, to have an elevated risk of clinically significant mental health problems, higher than the 10%-15% that would be expected for these age groups in the United States.

“This study revealed that a high percentage of Chinese American parents and their children personally experienced or witnessed anti-Chinese or anti–Asian American racial discrimination both online and in person due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” the investigators wrote. “Most respondents reported directly experiencing or witnessing racial discrimination against other Chinese or Asian American individuals due to COVID-19 at least once.”

Dr. Cheah and colleagues noted that their cross-sectional study did not lend itself to causal interpretations and was vulnerable to certain types of reporting bias. Nonetheless, they argued, as the pandemic continues, “pediatricians should be sensitive to the potential mental health needs of Chinese American youth and their parents related to various forms of racism, in addition to other stressors, as the foundations of perceptions of racial-ethnic discrimination and their consequences may be set during this period.”
 

COVID-19 didn’t only bring infection

In an accompanying editorial, Tina L. Cheng, MD, of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and her daughter Alison M. Conca-Cheng, a medical student at Brown University, Providence, R.I., remarked that the study’s findings were consistent with recent research that found “4 in 10 Americans reported that it has become more common since COVID-19 for people to express racist views about Asian Americans,” and also described an increase in complaints of discriminatory experiences by Asian Americans.

In this context, a link to poor mental health “should be no surprise,” Dr. Cheng and Ms. Conca-Cheng argued, and urged pediatricians to consult the American Academy of Pediatrics’ 2019 policy statement on racism and on child and adolescent health. “It calls for us to optimize clinical practice, improve workforce development and professional education, strengthen research, and deploy systems through community engagement, advocacy, and public policy.”

David Rettew, MD, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and associate professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the University of Vermont, Burlington, called the study’s main points “clear and disturbing.”

“While it is difficult to find much in the way here of a silver lining, these alarming reports have helped people working in health care and mental health to understand racism as another form of trauma and abuse which, like other types, can have real negative effects on health,” Dr. Rettew said in an interview. “The more we as mental health professions ask about racism and offer resources for people who have experienced it, just as we would people who have endured other types of trauma, the more we can help people heal. That said, it would be better just to stop this from happening in the first place.”

Dr. Cheah and colleagues’ study was supported by a National Science Foundation grant. The investigators disclosed no conflicts of interest. Dr. Cheng and Ms. Conca-Cheng disclosed no financial conflicts of interest related to their editorial. Dr. Rettew said he had no relevant financial disclosures.

SOURCE: Cheah CSL et al. Pediatrics. 2020;146(5):e2020021816.

Half of Chinese American parents and their children report having experienced an in-person episode of racial discrimination related to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to results from a survey study.

In the United States, where public officials continue to refer to SARS-CoV-2 as the “China virus” and have often sought to draw attention to its origins in Wuhan, China, “the associations between discrimination triggered by the racialization of this acute public health crisis and mental health are unknown,” Charissa S.L. Cheah, PhD, of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and colleagues wrote.

For their research published Oct. 29 in Pediatrics, Dr. Cheah and colleagues recruited a cohort of 543 Chinese American parents of school-age children, and 230 of their children aged 10-18 years, to complete online surveys between mid-March and late May 2020. Parents in the cohort were largely foreign born, with all identifying as ethnically Chinese, while their children were mostly U.S. born.
 

Evidence of discrimination against Chinese Americans

Half of parents and their children (51% of parents and 50% of youth) reported experiencing at least one in-person incident of direct discrimination (assessed using questions derived from a validated scale of racial aggression) related to the pandemic. Dr. Cheah and colleagues also reported a high incidence of direct discrimination online (32% of parents and 46% of youth). Additionally, the researchers measured reports of vicarious or indirect discrimination – such as hearing jokes or disparaging remarks about one’s ethnic group – which they used a different adapted scale to capture. More than three-quarters of the cohort reported such experiences.

The experiences of discrimination likely bore on the mental health of both parents and youth. Using a series of instruments designed to measure overall psychological well-being as well as symptoms of depression, anxiety, and certain emotional and behavioral outcomes, Dr. Cheah and colleagues reported significant negative associations between direct online or in-person discrimination and psychological health. For parents and children alike, anxiety and depressive symptoms were positively associated with all varieties of discrimination experiences measured in the study.

About a fifth of the youth in the study were deemed, based on the symptom scales used in the study, to have an elevated risk of clinically significant mental health problems, higher than the 10%-15% that would be expected for these age groups in the United States.

“This study revealed that a high percentage of Chinese American parents and their children personally experienced or witnessed anti-Chinese or anti–Asian American racial discrimination both online and in person due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” the investigators wrote. “Most respondents reported directly experiencing or witnessing racial discrimination against other Chinese or Asian American individuals due to COVID-19 at least once.”

Dr. Cheah and colleagues noted that their cross-sectional study did not lend itself to causal interpretations and was vulnerable to certain types of reporting bias. Nonetheless, they argued, as the pandemic continues, “pediatricians should be sensitive to the potential mental health needs of Chinese American youth and their parents related to various forms of racism, in addition to other stressors, as the foundations of perceptions of racial-ethnic discrimination and their consequences may be set during this period.”
 

COVID-19 didn’t only bring infection

In an accompanying editorial, Tina L. Cheng, MD, of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and her daughter Alison M. Conca-Cheng, a medical student at Brown University, Providence, R.I., remarked that the study’s findings were consistent with recent research that found “4 in 10 Americans reported that it has become more common since COVID-19 for people to express racist views about Asian Americans,” and also described an increase in complaints of discriminatory experiences by Asian Americans.

In this context, a link to poor mental health “should be no surprise,” Dr. Cheng and Ms. Conca-Cheng argued, and urged pediatricians to consult the American Academy of Pediatrics’ 2019 policy statement on racism and on child and adolescent health. “It calls for us to optimize clinical practice, improve workforce development and professional education, strengthen research, and deploy systems through community engagement, advocacy, and public policy.”

David Rettew, MD, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and associate professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the University of Vermont, Burlington, called the study’s main points “clear and disturbing.”

“While it is difficult to find much in the way here of a silver lining, these alarming reports have helped people working in health care and mental health to understand racism as another form of trauma and abuse which, like other types, can have real negative effects on health,” Dr. Rettew said in an interview. “The more we as mental health professions ask about racism and offer resources for people who have experienced it, just as we would people who have endured other types of trauma, the more we can help people heal. That said, it would be better just to stop this from happening in the first place.”

Dr. Cheah and colleagues’ study was supported by a National Science Foundation grant. The investigators disclosed no conflicts of interest. Dr. Cheng and Ms. Conca-Cheng disclosed no financial conflicts of interest related to their editorial. Dr. Rettew said he had no relevant financial disclosures.

SOURCE: Cheah CSL et al. Pediatrics. 2020;146(5):e2020021816.