Abstract
This exciting issue of the journal contains a number of articles that address critical mental health issues in marginalized populations, provide international perspectives on treatment and monitoring, and detail novel approaches to the epidemiology of mental illness. I hope you will read and learn from Ijadi-Maghsoodi et al. on youth mental health impacts of homelessness and parental substance abuse; Saito et al. on the state of practice in Japan concerning the treatment of pediatric depression; and Choi et al. on their study of >20,000 Korean youth with tic disorders.
Shafi et al. provide us with a welcome study on the differential impact of social media use in adolescents aged 12–17 years who present for acute psychiatric admission. This retrospective study (n = 56) provides a fascinating and detailed look into the clinical presentation of the contemporary adolescent and should be helpful to the clinician and clinician-scientist who hopes to understand patterns of media usage and mental health symptomatology as well as psychotropic prescribing.
Shafi et al. report that as age increases in this range, social media use is increasingly correlated with risk for a variety of poor or concerning outcomes: prescriptions for psychotropic medications, self-injurious behaviors, and suicide risk and suicidality.
“Social media use in different age groups could signify different risk profiles or variable effects on psychiatric status,” the authors write. “Broadly, the present results further underscore that social media use in adolescents with severe psychiatric disturbances is likely a core concern that is still poorly understood by child and adolescent psychiatrists.”
The article by Shafi et al. dovetails with the Child Mind Institute's recently released Children's Mental Health Report on social media, gaming, and mental health. This resource is helpful for treating both professionals hoping to get a snapshot of the research base and parents and educators seeking to better understand the online behavior of children and adolescents and the mental health impacts.
This 2019 report includes
data on mental health effects of social media and gaming in kids and teens,
research on protective effects of online communities,
guidelines for social media and Internet use, and
essays from authoritative partners on specific areas of concern including addiction, depression, and suicide ideation.
It also features a section highlighting preliminary research on Problematic Internet Use from the Child Mind Institute's Healthy Brain Network study. You can access this report and its supplements at (