IntroductionThe COVID-19 pandemic worsened well-being and mental health worldwide, but effects have diminished over time. However, prospective national data within representative samples remain scarce. We aimed to examine the change in well-being and psychopathology from pre-pandemic to intra-pandemic times in an Austrian representative general population sample, to identify vulnerable subgroups, and explore most effective coping strategies to mitigate the impact of COVID-19.MethodsData were collected in Austria as part of the Collaborative Outcomes Study on Health and Functioning During Infection Times (COH-FIT) survey, an international, multilingual, anonymous online survey assessing mental health indicators during COVID-19. Adults ≥18 years old participated through nationally representative sampling across three waves from 05/2020-04/2022. Outcomes included the WHO well-being index (WHO-5) and a global psychopathology score (‘P-score’), alongside 12 predefined risk factors and 16 coping strategies.ResultsAcross 4,148 adults, the mean WHO-5 well-being score decreased by 7.5 ± 17.7 points from the pre-pandemic baseline (73.2 ± 19.7) to the intra-pandemic average (65.7 ± 24.1) (p<.001). Participants with female sex, pre-existing mental or physical health conditions, and unemployment experienced greater declines. The proportion of individuals scoring <50, indicating depression, increased from 12.6% pre-pandemic baseline to 25.1% intra-pandemic, and the proportion scoring <29, indicating major depression, increased from 3.3% to 9.7% (both p<.001). The ‘P-score’ increased by 9.6 ± 15.0 points from 24.1 ± 19.5 pre-pandemic baseline to 33.7 ± 22.4 intra-pandemic (p<.001) with the same risk groups (except female sex). Although the greatest deterioration in both outcomes occurred during the mid-pandemic period (04/2021), neither well-being nor ‘P-score’ levels returned to pre-pandemic baseline values by 04/2022, nor to values from 05/2020 (Wave 1). Greater deterioration in WHO-5 and the P-score were associated with female sex, unemployment, pre-existing mental or physical disorders, and COVID-19 infection. The most commonly reported helpful coping strategies included internet use, physical activity, media consumption, social media and remote interaction, and meaningful hobbies.DiscussionCOVID-19 had a persistent negative impact on well-being and mental health in Austria. Vulnerable subgroups – including those with prior health conditions and unemployment – were particularly affected. The findings underscore the importance of implementing public health measures together with targeted interventions, preventive measures, and long-term psychosocial support, especially for risk populations.
Improving Patient Engagement in Mental Health Services
Conditions: Depression Disorder; Engagement
Interventions: Behavioral: Behavioral Activation
Sponsors: Montana State University
Not yet recruiting
Interventions: Behavioral: Behavioral Activation
Sponsors: Montana State University
Not yet recruiting
Co-Designing a Text Messaging Intervention for Youth Transitioning From Child to Adult Mental Health Services: Participatory Design Jam Study
<strong>Background:</strong> The transition from child to adult mental health services is a vulnerable period marked by service disengagement, care gaps, and worsening mental health outcomes. Although planned, developmentally appropriate transition processes can improve functioning, youths report insufficient preparation, limited continuity of care, and unmet expectations for support. Existing transition supports remain underevaluated and require further adaptation for mental health contexts. Youth consistently report needing clearer information, concrete support, and sustained connection. Digital tools, particularly SMS text messaging, which is widely used, accessible, and acceptable to youth, offer a promising way to deliver timely transition supports. Yet most digital mental health tools are developed without meaningful youth involvement, highlighting the need for participatory approaches to ensure relevance, usability, and uptake. <strong>Objective:</strong> This study aimed to co-design and refine prototypes for a transition-focused SMS text messaging intervention by engaging youth with lived experience in a participatory co-design activity (design jam) to identify priority content, key functionality, and implementation enablers to support the transition from child to adult mental health services. <strong>Methods:</strong> We conducted a 3-hour mixed methods, participatory design jam to co-design transition-focused SMS text messaging prototypes, recruiting youth aged 16-26 years in Canada who had recently transitioned to, or were approaching transitioning to, adult mental health services. Data sources included workshop artifacts, observational field notes, and audio recordings from structured activities involving evidence review, brainstorming, rapid prototyping, brief team pitches, and evaluation. Rapid qualitative analysis, integrating open coding, content analysis of visual prototypes, and the rapid identification of themes from audio recordings, was used to identify priority content, key functionality, and implementation enablers. Findings were refined through a member-checking debrief with youth participants. <strong>Results:</strong> Seven youths aged 19-24 years participated in the design jam. Across two teams, participants generated 54 content ideas and 50 feature ideas. Two distinct prototypes were developed: one emphasizing long-term affirmation, self-advocacy, self-care, and profile-based customization, and the other prioritizing shorter-term informational support, navigation resources, and flexible message frequency. Youth across both groups highlighted the importance of interactive and visually engaging elements. Analysis revealed 3 thematic tensions shaping youth design preferences: balancing autonomy with ongoing support (roaming/reconnecting), balancing personalization with the need for simplicity (customization/convention), and balancing knowledge delivery with motivation for action (learning/living). Participants rated the design jam positively. <strong>Conclusions:</strong> Youth meaningfully contributed to co-designing an SMS text messaging intervention to support transition from child to adult mental health services, generating concrete content, functionality, and implementation priorities. Their prototypes highlighted the need to balance autonomy with support, personalization with simplicity, and information with motivational guidance. These findings demonstrate the value of participatory co-design in developing youth-centered digital transition supports and underscore the importance of evaluating such prototypes in real-world settings to determine feasibility and impact.
<![CDATA[ASPIRE survey reveals fatigue and cognitive impairment reduce work abilities and quality of life in narcolepsy and idiopathic hypersomnia, exposing unmet needs.]]>
Mental Health Fitness Through a Youth Perspective
Insights on building and advancing mental health care solutions through collaboration — from the Global Youth Advisory Council at the SNF Global Center for Child and Adolescent Mental Health at the Child Mind Institute
Mai El Shoush, Partnerships Campaign Manager, Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Global Center for Child and Adolescent Mental Health at the Child Mind Institute
Tatiana P. Claridad, MBA, Director of Board Affairs and Institutional Strategy, Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Global Center for Child and Adolescent Mental Health at the Child Mind Institute
Mental health fitness is shaped by lived experience, context, and the systems of care that surround us. During Mental Health Awareness Month, we invited young leaders from the Global Youth Advisory Council (GYAC) at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Global Center at the Child Mind Institute — from Brazil, South Africa, and Greece — to share their unique perspectives.
Their reflections offer insight into how young people define, build, and experience mental fitness globally, highlighting the influence of their environments, communities and everyday realities. Their views are essential to shaping more relevant and effective support for young people everywhere.
From daily habits to systemic change, here’s how young people are reimagining mental health care as mental health fitness:
These reflections raise a broader question — how can global collaboration strengthen mental health support for children and adolescents?
While these insights from the GYAC members highlight the importance of collaboration, they also reflect a new paradigm of youth leadership.
What continues to inspire you as a young leader about the ideas and perspectives shared through the Global Youth Advisory Council, and what does it say about the future of mental health care?
“What continues to inspire me most is the diversity of perspectives across different countries, yet the shared commitment to improving youth mental health. There is something powerful about young people coming together across contexts, bridging gaps through a global lens while staying rooted in their lived experiences. It reminds me that the future of mental health care will be more inclusive, shaped by real voices, and focused on breaking stigma in ways that feel authentic and meaningful.”
Delice Lumbu, 20, Director of Youth Engagement, SNF Global Center
Contributors: Delice Lumbu, Director of Youth Engagement, Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Global Center for Child and Adolescent Mental Health at the Child Mind Institute
The post Mental Health Fitness Through a Youth Perspective appeared first on Child Mind Institute.
Derbyshire Healthcare to roll out Psyomics mental health platform
Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust will roll out Psyomics’digital platform to improve access to community mental health care.
Perceptions of mental health services among informal caregivers in Sardinia, Italy, during the post-pandemic crisis of the national health system: a comparative study between 2024 and 2025
BackgroundItaly’s community-based mental health model, grounded in Law 180, has long been regarded as a global example of rights-oriented psychiatric reform. However, recent years have witnessed a crisis in the national health system, marked by chronic and progressively accumulating underfunding, workforce shortages, and organizational strain, rather than a single acute disruption. This s/tudy compares two samples of informal caregivers of individuals receiving mental health care in Sardinia (2024 vs. 2025) to explore differences in their perceptions of service quality, organizational well-being, and respect for human rights.MethodsA cross-sectional design was used to compare independent caregiver samples (2024: n = 100; 2025: n = 74). Participants completed the Well-Being at Work and Respect for Human Rights Questionnaire (WWRR), which assesses satisfaction with care, perceptions of organizational quality, and respect for users’ and staff’s rights. Data were analyzed with ANOVA and chi-square tests.ResultsCaregivers in 2025 reported significantly higher satisfaction than those in 2024 regarding the quality of services (p = 0.007), organizational aspects (p = 0.007), and respect for the human rights of both users (p < 0.001) and staff (p = 0.037). No differences emerged in perceived user satisfaction or resource adequacy, with both cohorts expressing persistent concern about staffing and infrastructure. The perceived need for additional nurses, doctors, and support staff increased in 2025, which may indicate growing awareness of workforce fragility.ConclusionsThese differences in satisfaction should be interpreted within a context of prolonged systemic strain, which may foster adaptive or resilience-based perceptions among informal caregivers. Despite ongoing structural difficulties, informal caregivers maintain high confidence in Italy’s community mental health services and perceive them as respectful of human rights. However, their increasing concern about resource shortages highlights the urgent need for investment to preserve the ethical and organizational strengths of the Italian model.
Effectiveness and Implementation of a Personalized mHealth Intervention for the Universal Prevention of Maternal Perinatal Mental Disorders
Conditions: Perinatal Depression; Perinatal Anxiety
Interventions: Behavioral: The e-Perinatal intervention is a personalized mobile health (mHealth) program; Other: Standard routine maternal care
Sponsors: University of Seville; Junta de Andalucia; Health Service of Andalucia
Not yet recruiting
Interventions: Behavioral: The e-Perinatal intervention is a personalized mobile health (mHealth) program; Other: Standard routine maternal care
Sponsors: University of Seville; Junta de Andalucia; Health Service of Andalucia
Not yet recruiting
Detecting Alzheimer’s Early by Brain Scan or Blood
While Alzheimer’s disease accounts for about 60-70% of dementia diagnoses, the timing of these diagnoses occur late in disease progression. Identifying early signs of Alzheimer’s may allow individuals time to address potential risk factors in their lives.
“Alzheimer’s disease pathology begins years before symptoms emerge,” said Kristine Yaffe, MD, vice chair in the UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Yaffe and her team have spent years researching modifiable risk factors that may play a role in dementia development, including physical and cognitive activity, depression, smoking, and cardiovascular health.
A current trajectory of research into Alzheimer’s disease is focusing on ways to detect the disease early, before major symptoms manifest. Two new studies published in The Lancet present different methods for detecting Alzheimer’s disease that converge in their early detection ability.
Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by increased amounts of tau and amyloid-β plaques. Growing research indicates the importance of tau pathology and amyloid-β accumulation at initiating changes to the brain associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
“Tau is the biology most closely tied to symptoms and future decline,” said Tharick Pascoal, MD, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and neurology at the University of Pittsburgh and a behavioral neurologist at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “If we can detect tau earlier and stage it more precisely, we can make better decisions about who is truly on an Alzheimer’s trajectory, which matters for clinical trials now and could shape clinical decision-making as new therapies emerge.”
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh led by Guilherme Povala, PhD, and Bruna Bellaver, PhD, have focused their work on brain scan imaging to detect tau both more effectively, and earlier.
The team’s recently published work compared the ability of two tracers used in non-invasive PET scans to visualize Alzheimer’s-associated tangles of tau protein. To do this, participants underwent paired tau PET scans, the first using a standard tau tracer, Flortaucipir, or a new tracer, MK6240. Within 45 days of the PET scan, participants also received an amyloid-β PET scan and detailed cognitive assessments. Of the 775 initial participants, 682 completed all of the study components.
“Because participants received both tracer scans within a short window, we’re looking at the same moment in the disease course, so differences we see reflect the tracers, not changes over time,” explained co-lead author, Guilherme Povala, PhD, postdoctoral associate at the University of Pittsburgh, about the experimental design.
Analysis showed that imaging with the MK6240 tracer detected more tau than tracing with Flortaucipir. In participants with cognitive impairment and positive amyloid-β results, MK6240 identified move than twice as many tau-positive cases, 15% compared with six percent, which was an additional 23 patients per 100. Tracing with MK6240 also identified increased tau, 28% vs. 16% with Flortaucipir, in patients with mild cognitive impairment and dementia, resulting in 15 or 21 additional cases per 100 participants scanned.
“People typically seek evaluation because they have memory concerns or other symptoms,” pointed out co-lead author, Bruna Bellaver, PhD, research assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. “Tau PET is one tool that can help clinicians stage disease biology and make more informed decisions.”
Across the country in California, researchers from University of California, San Francisco, have drawn on their experience with blood biomarkers in an effort to develop a method for detecting Alzheimer’s before major symptoms develop.
The west coast study included 1,350 participants (out of an initial 2248) who were retained in the U.S. Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study. Participant blood plasma was tested from samples that were collected at project year 35 (2020-2022) and five years prior. Plasma biomarkers for amyloid-β (Aβ42 and Aβ40) and tau (p-tau217) were measured and used to calculate p-tau217-to-Aβ42 and Aβ42-to-Aβ40 ratios and then those were compared to the cognitive assessment scores that were measured at the same time period. Any participants missing materials were excluded from the initial cohort. During analysis, participants were also classified by Alzheimer’s disease neuropathy status of negative, intermediate and positive based on amyloid PET-validated cutpoints for each marker.
Results from the initial analysis showed that participants with high biomarkers also had both lower processing speeds and lower executive function in the first time point. After five years, the group that initially had high levels of biomarkers now had a 2.5 to 4 times increased risk of rapid decline in verbal memory, and three to four times the risk for rapid decline in processing speed. Together, these data suggest a connection between the observed cognitive decline and increase in biomarkers.
While brain scans, and spinal fluid tests are often used and widely available, blood tests are less invasive and relatively inexpensive, potentially enabling more patients access to diagnostics along with early detection prior to symptom development. While there is potential for measuring blood biomarkers for clinical use, senior author, Yaffe, prescribes cautious optimism. “There’s a possibility of false positives and [these markers] can only be used for Alzheimer’s, not other dementias, meaning about 60% to 70% of all dementia cases,” she said. “But for some people who discover they have the biomarkers, testing could open a window to embark on interventions that may postpone Alzheimer’s onset.” More work is still needed to clarify the utility of both early detection methods in the clinic.
Overall, both studies show significant progress in developing strategies to identify dementia, and specifically Alzheimer’s disease, earlier. Earlier diagnosis may lead to earlier intervention and potentially more positive outcomes for patients. As Yaffee concluded, “Detecting the disease early means patients can target modifiable risk factors and maybe seek other care.”
The post Detecting Alzheimer’s Early by Brain Scan or Blood appeared first on Inside Precision Medicine.
BrainBaseline Assessment of Cognition and Everyday Functioning (“BRACE”-ing for the Future): Establishing iPad-Based Norms for Cognitive Function in the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study and Women’s Interagency HIV Study Combined Cohort Study
Background: Digital cognitive assessments are increasingly used in large-scale studies to assess brain health, offering scalable, standardized, and self-directed testing solutions. Cognitive function remains a concern for people with HIV despite antiretroviral therapy. The BRACE (BrainBaseline Assessment of Cognition and Everyday Functioning) is a validated tablet-based screener for cognition in people with HIV. Preliminary pilot norms were established in a small sample (n=144), but full regression-based normative data have not yet been developed. Consequently, HIV serostatus differences based on standardized BRACE scores and cognitive correlates have not been systematically examined. Objective: This study aims to develop regression-based normative data for BRACE performance in people without HIV who were demographically and behaviorally comparable to people with HIV within biological sex; to examine differences in cognitive performance by HIV status and biological sex; and to evaluate sociodemographic, behavioral, and clinical correlates of BRACE performance. Methods: A total of 2937 participants (1063 people without HIV [499 women] and 1874 people with HIV [1053 women]) in the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study/Women’s Interagency HIV Study Combined Cohort Study completed BRACE once between November 2020 and March 2025. BRACE includes the Trail Making Test (A and B), Stroop-Color, and visual spatial learning. Regression-based norms were derived from people without HIV using multiple demographic models (eg, age-only, age + education, and age + education + sex). The age + education model was selected for primary analyses because it provided the best balance of interpretability, parsimony, and generalizability while avoiding race-based corrections. HIV serostatus and sex differences were examined using ANOVA and tests, with effect sizes calculated using Cohen’s . Results: Cognitive performance was largely comparable between people with HIV and people without HIV across all BRACE outcome measures. Statistically significant differences were very small in magnitude (all effect sizes<0.11) and primarily observed among men on Stroop-Color. Across groups, older age and fewer years of education were associated with poorer raw BRACE performance, although these associations attenuated after demographic adjustment using T-scores. Most clinical and behavioral factors (eg, hypertension, smoking, and noncannabis substance use) were related to poorer raw scores but not standardized performance. However, diabetes and cannabis use remained independently associated with T-scores across multiple measures—diabetes with poorer scores and cannabis use with higher scores, an association that should be interpreted cautiously. HIV-specific clinical factors, such as nadir CD4 count and antiretroviral therapy duration, were linked primarily to raw scores. Conclusions: This study establishes the first regression-based normative data for BRACE, derived from a large, demographically diverse people without HIV, and demonstrates its applicability for evaluating cognitive function in people with HIV. Findings indicate minimal cognitive differences between people with HIV and people without HIV and highlight the influence of common sociodemographic and metabolic factors. These results support BRACE as a scalable, reliable, and self-administered digital tool for assessing cognitive health in diverse populations and underscore its potential for longitudinal monitoring and precision phenotyping in both research and clinical contexts.
