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This paper reports the impact of a major life event–death–on the physical, psychological and social well-being of the deceased’s close friends. We utilised data from a large longitudinal survey covering a period of 14 years (2002–2015) consisting a cohort of 26,515 individuals in Australia, of whom 9,586 had experienced the death of at least one close friend. This longitudinal cohort dataset comprises responses to the SF-36 (health related quality of life measure) and allowed for analysis of the short and longer-term impacts of bereavement. In order to manage the heterogeneity of the socio-demographics of respondents who did/not experience a death event, we use a new and robust approach known as the Entropy Balancing method to construct a set of weights applied to the bereaved group and the control group (the group that did not experience death). This approach enables us to match the two groups so that the distribution of socio-demographic variables between the two groups are balanced. These variables included gender, age, marital status, ethnicity, personality traits, religion, relative socio-economic disadvantage, economic resources, and education and occupation and where they resided. The data show, for the first time, a range of negative and enduring consequences experienced by people following the death of a close friend. Significant adverse physical and psychological well-being, poorer mental health and social functioning occur up to four years following bereavement. Bereaved females experienced a sharper fall in vitality, suffered greater deterioration in mental health, impaired emotional and social functioning than the male counterparts up to four years after the death. The data show that the level of social connectedness plays an important role in bereavement outcomes. Specifically, we found that less socially active respondents experienced a longer deterioration in physical and psychological health. Finally, we found evidence that the death of a close friend lowered the respondent’s satisfaction with their health. Since death of friends is a universal phenomenon, we conclude the paper by reflecting on the need to recognise the death of a close friend as a substantial experience, and to offer support and services to address this disenfranchised grief. Recognising bereaved friends as a group experiencing adverse outcomes can be used internationally to prompt health and psychological services to assist this specific group, noting that there may be substantial longevity to the negative sequelae of the death of a friend. Facilitating bereaved people’s support networks may be a fruitful approach to minimising these negative outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study examined the feasibility of providing older adults living in residential aged care with group‐based cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for depression and anxiety. Method: Eighteen participants with subclinical to mild anxiety and/or depression were divided equally into a treatment group and a control group, with treatment consisting of a manualised CBT program for older adults with depression and anxiety. The residents who participated in the group program provided an accurate representation of “real‐world” residential aged care facilities (RACF) populations; many with comorbid physical problems, mild cognitive impairment and functional decline, and a mean age of almost 80 years. Results: The residents showed that not only could they successfully engage in psychotherapy, they were able to experience the benefits such as building their skills and resilience, receiving validation and emotional support from their fellow residents and fostering friendships and social networks. Encouragingly, the treatment group also showed fewer depressive symptoms post‐treatment. Conclusions: Group‐based psychotherapy should continue to be explored as a strategy to promote good mental health in RACFs, with further studies focusing on the feasibility of recruiting and treating clinical populations in this setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mental health practices are not working for older people with anxiety in residential care, as there is a persistent lack of recognition and treatment. This suggests that alternative ways of reaching and meeting the needs of this population need to be explored. One possibility involves enabling older adults themselves to seek help. The current work explored various factors impacting on help-seeking behaviours. In total, 105 participants from independent living units in a residential care setting completed a questionnaire focusing on attitudes and stigma towards anxiety, likelihood to seek help, help-seeking barriers and literacy around the symptoms of anxiety. Participants in the main did not hold negative attitudes towards other people with anxiety, despite concerns that other people could view them negatively if they were experiencing anxiety. Barriers to help-seeking included: difficulties recognising physical anxiety symptoms as being indicative of anxiety; the effectiveness of treatments; costs; misdiagnosis; privacy; medication usage and the associated side-effects; and, uneasiness about the skills and knowledge of health professionals. Although concerns were not held by all participants, the fact remains that anxiety is largely undiagnosed and untreated for this population and these stoppages to appropriate care must be addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keywords: video-meeting; overuse; Zoom; mental disorder; medical education EN video-meeting overuse Zoom mental disorder medical education 669 669 1 11/23/20 20201201 NES 201201 Dear Sir, We highlight a new diagnosis of paramount significance during the COVID-19 pandemic public health measures, and which may be included in international diagnostic classifications (e.g. the I Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders i or I International Classification of Diseases i ) in the future. Our proposed diagnosis is based on clinical observations of an insidious and debilitating video-meeting-mediated disorder afflicting medical students and their clinical academic teachers over the last 6 months, during social distancing for the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. We consider that this disorder may be usefully classified under the rubric of a trauma or stressor-related disorder; analogous to similar COVID-19 emergent mental disorders (to be discussed in forthcoming papers) such as COVID-19-related Isolated-Academic Logorrhoea (an obsessive-compulsive and related disorder) - the product of which may be exemplified by this letter - or, COVID-19-related Specific Communication Disorder (a bullshit or related disorder). [Extracted from the article]