A short, 27-item, questionnaire available free online is a valid and effective tool to help primary care doctors screen patients for four common psychiatric illnesses - depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder (PSTD)

Just stressed or should you seek treatment? Check your mental health online with the M-3 Mood Monitor at www.mymoodmonitor.com

Primary Care Doctors Hold the Key

Primary care physicians hold the key to reaching more people suffering from undiagnosed psychiatric illnesses. For most people who suffer from depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder (PSTD), their initial diagnosis is made by a primary care doctor, not by a psychiatrist. In addition, the majority of prescriptions for antidepressant medications are written by primary care physicians. For those reasons, a simple checklist that can screen for multiple disorders would be very helpful.

One in Ten with Psychiatric Illness Untreated

"About one in 10 Americans who suffer from depression and anxiety-related mental health disorders never receives treatment because they don't understand what's wrong, and when they go to their family doctor these treatable illnesses are too often missed," said Bradley Gaynes, M.D., M.P.H, lead author of the study and an associate professor of psychiatry in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. "For these millions of people and their primary care providers, the M-3 screener is a tremendously helpful resource," Gaynes said.

Results Recently Published

Results of the My Mood Monitor (M-3) checklist study are published in the March/April 2010 issue of Annals of Family Medicine. The checklist was developed by M-3 Information of Bethesda, Md., and is available at www.mymoodmonitor.com.
To evaluate the M-3 checklist, Gaynes and study co-authors enrolled 647 adults age 18 or older who sought care at the UNC Family Medicine Center between July 2007 and February 2008. Each participant filled out a paper version of the checklist while waiting to see their doctor. Each participant's completed checklist was then given to their doctor, and the doctors used the checklist to discuss emotional health with their patients.

83% Effective in Screening Anxiety disorder

Researchers later interviewed each person who filled out the checklist, within 30 days of their doctor visit, and assigned final diagnoses after reviewing each interview with Gaynes. These diagnoses were then compared to the answers each participant gave on their checklists. The results showed that the M-3 was effective in screening for any mood or anxiety disorder 83 percent of the time and for a specific disorder in 76 percent of cases.

Self-Testing to be Studied

Gaynes said the research team is currently designing a second study to measure the effectiveness of the M-3 checklist when used by individuals to monitor their mental health status over time. The company has developed a mobile phone version of the checklist that will be released late this year.

Contaminated food causes illness ranging from the benign - minor stomachaches - to life threatening E coli infections. Despite the headlines generated by food scares and outbreaks of contaminants -- such as the salmonella outbreak that led to a massive recall of peanut products beginning in January 2009 -- food safety rarely gets the attention it deserves. The public is not really aware of the overall public health cost of food-borne illnesses resulting in 5,000 deaths and 325,000 hospitalizations each year

The 10 Most Dangerous Foods

Hot Dogs, Fugu, Ackee, Peanuts, Leafy Greens, Rhubarb, Tuna, Cassava, Coffee, Mushrooms.

New Study Pegs Cost at $152 Bil per Year

According to a new study by the Produce Safety Project, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trust., the consequences of food-borne illness -- including doctor visits, medication, lost work days and pain and suffering -- cost the U.S. an estimated $152 billion annually.

Rosa DeLauro, a Democratic Representative from Connecticut, has taken the lead on food safety in Congress. "These are preventable deaths," she said, "Those numbers represent real sickness, pain and even death for American families". President Barack Obama called for new food-safety regulations a year ago, and the House of Representatives passed a bill to overhaul the system last July. The onus now is on the Senate, which is still waiting to act. "It's our job to go to war against food-borne illness," says DeLauro. "We can't afford to wait." At $152 billion a year, the meter is running.

Previous Food Poisoning Cost Estimates Way Low

Previous reports, by the USDA and FDA, have pegged the total cost of food-borne illness at between $6.9 billion and $35 billion, undercounted because most cases of food-borne illness are never officially reported.

The Produce Safety Project study used CDC data showing that there are 76 million new cases of food-borne illness in the U.S. each year. Study author Robert Scharff, a professor at Ohio State University and a former FDA economist, then tried to account for the overall cost of illness, factoring in every expense, from onetime costs for prescription medication to losses in "quality of life. The new estimate of cost is well above previous calculations of the impact of food-safety problems, and the new study suggests that food- borne illness will continue to take an increasing toll on public health if the nation's frayed food-safety net is not repaired.

Meanwhile, the food system itself has grown more complex. Bagged salad, for instance, which has proven to be a persistent risk for contamination, can include produce from several different farms, which makes it difficult to trace outbreaks of illness to their source. Our food system is 21st century, but our government's food-safety system is stuck in the 1900s.