APNA Annual Conference Call for Abstracts
Psychiatric-Mental Health RNs and APRNs from all areas of administration, education, practice, and research are invited to share their science-based insights, projects, and scholarship. Abstracts will be peer reviewed by the APNA Scholarly Review Committee and considered for a variety of presentation formats. Click here to learn more. Submission deadline is March 7.

APNA Clinical Psychopharmacology Institute Updates
Registration opens soon! Check out the cutting-edge program, prestigious faculty, and learn more about this year's event by clicking here.

Free Medications for Addictions Treatment Training
Register for these 2 FREE courses on medications for addictions treatment (MAT) and:

• Complete 24 hours of education required to obtain a DEA waiver to prescribe MAT (including buprenorphine) for opioid use disorders for more than 30 patients.
• Earn 24 NCPD contact hours in pharmacology
• Explore assessing and providing MAT to persons with opioid use disorders.
• Understand how current regulations affect your role and responsibilities as a provider.

Learn more and register.

Ready to Make a Difference?
The APNA Nominating Committee invites you to submit your name for consideration for these national leadership positions:

• APNA Board of Directors President-Elect (3-year term)
• APNA Board of Directors Member-at-large (2 positions available, 3-year term)
• 2023 APNA Nominating Committee (3 positions available, 1-year term)

​​​​To nominate yourself or a colleague, email Lisa Nguyen by Wednesday, April 6. Additional information and a form will be provided.
Learn more about these positions and duties by clicking here.

Applications Open for APNA Board of Directors Student Scholarship
To help the nurses of tomorrow on their path to a career in psychiatric-mental health nursing, the APNA Board of Directors Student Scholarship provides as many as 30 pre-licensure/undergraduate and graduate nursing students with:

• 1-year complimentary membership in APNA
• Registration, travel, and lodging to attend the APNA 36th Annual Conference
• Exposure to a nationwide network of experienced PMH nurses

Click here to learn more. Application deadline is April 4.

Mental Health America (MHA) released a first-of-its-kind dashboard that geographically maps the results of 2.6 million mental health screenings taken through the MHA Online Screening Program in 2020 and 2021. The dashboard provides a view of at-risk rates of suicidal ideation, severe depression, PTSD, trauma, and psychosis for every state and county in the U.S. Full Story

Scientists have demonstrated that a new blood test can accurately predict the presence of beta-amyloid plaques in the brain, according to a new study funded in part by NIA. Published in Neurology, the study analyzed the ability of a blood test to predict the presence of Alzheimer’s disease-associated protein beta-amyloid in the brain. The new blood test, which performs comparably to existing brain scan- or spinal tap-based tests, could lower costs and expand the availability of diagnostic studies for Alzheimer’s disease. Full Story

A new study from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing (Penn Nursing) and the Penn Injury Science Center has assessed the performance of two predictive screeners to determine their performance in a population heavily impacted by traumatic injury – urban Black men in the U.S. By using the Penn Richmond Screener and the Posttraumatic Adjustment Scale (PAS) researchers have validated the performance of both screeners in predicting the future emergence of depression and/or PTSD. These findings may indicate that risk markers for adverse psychological consequences of traumatic injury share some core similarities across populations and countries, reported EurekAlert.org. Full Story

Swiss-based biopharmaceutical company AC Immune SA announced promising new interim data on the safety and efficacy of its ACI-35.030 vaccine for patients with early Alzheimer’s disease, reported Healio. Based on AC Immune’s SupraAntigen platform, ACI-35.030 is designed to generate antibodies targeting pathological phosphorylated-Tau (pTau) in the brain. New results from a high-dose ACI-35.030 cohort in a placebo-controlled phase 1b/2a trial show strong induction of antibodies selective for pTau and its aggregated form of enriched paired helical filaments. Previous findings from the trial’s mid-dose cohort showed median anti-pTau antibody titers increasing two-fold from baseline at week 2 after the initial injection. Full Story

Providers reported an increase in outpatient visits related to mental health and substance use during the first 12 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open. Of the 34,055 practicing physicians, mental health and substance use visits during the pandemic continued to follow seasonal patterns but globally increased with 39.8 biweekly visits per 1,000 physicians compared with 30.8 prepandemic. Full Story

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation can be an effective treatment for suicidal ideation in patients with treatment-resistant depression, according to a meta-analysis published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. Full Story

Congress has passed the Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act to improve the mental health and well-being of healthcare workers.  The bill now heads to President Joe Biden for signature into law. Under the bill, HHS must award grants for training health profession students, residents and healthcare professionals to reduce and prevent suicide, burnout, mental health conditions and substance use disorders, reported Becker's Hospital Review. The grants are for hospitals, medical professional associations and other healthcare entities. Full Story

A new piece of bipartisan legislation has been introduced in the US Senate that aims to extend access to telehealth for Medicare beneficiaries after the COVID-19 pandemic has ended. The Telehealth Extension and Evaluation Act includes provisions that would allow the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to extend Medicare reimbursement for several telehealth services for two years after the COVID-19 public health emergency has ended. These include coverage for services provided by critical access hospitals, federally qualified health centers, rural health clinics, and reimbursement for virtual substance abuse treatment, reported mHealthIntelligence.com. Full Story

Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf’s proposed $43.7 billion budget includes money to improve behavioral health services and train more health care workers. Wolf wants to create a $200 million scholarship program for state system and community college students who want to work in health care and other in-demand sectors, reported WITF.org. They would have to agree to staying in Pennsylvania after graduating. Full Story

The Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and the Treasury issued their 2022 Report to Congress on the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008. The report includes information that suggests health plans and health insurance issuers are failing to deliver parity for mental health and substance-use disorder benefits to those they cover. The report also highlights the departments’ recent emphasis on greater MHPAEA enforcement in addition to guidance to correct those failures, and makes recommendations to strengthen MHPAEA’s consumer protections and enhance the departments’ enforce abilities. Full Story

The Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a report on the trends of telehealth use in 2021. While the utilization of telehealth increased dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic, access to telehealth is still inequitable across population subgroups. The groups with the highest rates of telehealth use were Medicare and Medicaid recipients, Black individuals, and people earning less than $25,000 a year. Further, the biggest disparities in telehealth were in the usage of video-services, with major differences across groups based on age, education, income and race. Click here to access the report.

Click here to see letters APNA has signed on to as a part of its participation in coalitions that further policy for nursing and mental health.

The American Psychiatric Nurses Association is accredited as a provider of nursing continuing professional development by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.