It was a tense and potentially violent few days in the Mental/Nervous System tab on SearchMedica. The statistics reveal that there were many searches related to violent crisis in the past week. But they can’t tell us why.
A top search term one day was “crisis intervention.”
It points up a new study testing a hypothesis raised every evening on TV—that professional negotiators actually reduce the risk that someone will get hurt when a mentally ill person threatens the public peace.
Do police officers trained in crisis intervention actually restrain the actions of SWAT teams (and the resulting risk of injuries)?
More than 400 police crisis intervention teams have been formed since the effort was pioneered in Memphis 20 years ago, but very few studies have examined their effectiveness.
(Numerous related articles in the same issue of the journal appear in the list of search results because the journal has prominently linked the study about SWAT teams to those articles on its own Web site.)
Practical Articles/News
Look in this article category to learn about the issues for mental health professionals acting in hostage crises.
RESULT: The Role of Mental Health Consultants on Hostage Negotiation Teams
Psychiatric Times
Recent Searches in Mental/Nervous System
What have other doctors been finding on SearchMedica?
“Crisis intervention” was the a top search one day last week, but others were looking at different kinds of crisis.
Search term: PTSD children
Would kids exposed to the 9/11 attacks in New York develop PTSD? Researchers looked at their mothers.
RESULT: School based intervention improves PTSD symptoms in children affected by political violence
Evidence-Based Mental Health
Search term: psychopathy
A new study shows that people who kill their fathers (in Finland) tend to lack remorse, empathy, and a sense of responsibility, but generally are less psychopathic than other murderers.
RESULT: Differences between homicide and filicide offenders; results of a nationwide register-based case-control study
BMC Psychiatry
Search term: Wortzel
Someone wrote in to point out a review by Hal S. Wortzel, MD, of a textbook for psychiatrists who must deal with violence.
RESULT: Textbook of Violence Assessment and Management
Psychiatric Times
There were also a few moments of calm.
Search term: yoga
A small controlled study from Iran found yoga effective against anxiety and depression in women.
RESULT: Effects of yoga on depression and anxiety of women
Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice (PubMed)
Switching over to the All of Medicine tab, you’ll find a small study from Texas suggesting that yoga can reduce anxiety in adolescents.
RESULT: Ashtanga yoga for children and adolescents for weight management and psychological well being: an uncontrolled open pilot study.
Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice (PubMed)
NOTEWORTHY SEARCH of the week
Lessons to improve your success on SearchMedica, drawn from a genuine search
Someone who searched on the term Brodie, pet-facilitated therapy, 1997 saw the discouraging reply “There were no documents found for your search. Please try again.”
TIP: If your search fails, please change something and try again!
We omitted “1997″ from the search term and found the article—which was published in 1999.
RESULT: An exploration of the potential benefits of pet-facilitated therapy
Journal of Clinical Nursing (PubMed)
The Brodie article points out that (at least in 1999) few hospitals were encouraging visits from pets, even though their positive effects on healing are well documented.
The general query pets therapy drew our attention to a recent review that mentions this strategy among many other ways to improve the likelihood that medical institutions actually encourage healing.
RESULT: Creating a healing environment: Rationale and research overview
Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine
