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Introduction: This study examined the effects of experimentally manipulated social media exposure on adolescents' willingness and intention to use e-cigarettes.Aims and Methods: Participants were 135 adolescents of age 13-18 (52.6% female, mean age = 15.3) in California. Participants viewed six social media posts online in a 2 (post source: peer or advertisement) × 2 (e-cigarette content exposure: heavy or light) between-subjects design. Analyses were weighted to population benchmarks. We examined adolescents' beliefs, willingness, and intention to use e-cigarettes in association with social media use intensity in daily life and with experimentally manipulated exposure to social media posts that varied by source (peer or advertisement) and content (e-cigarette heavy or light).Results: Greater social media use in daily life was associated with greater willingness and intention to use e-cigarettes and more positive attitudes, greater perceived norms, and lower perceived danger of e-cigarette use (all p-values <.01). In tests of the experimental exposures, heavy (vs. light) e-cigarette content resulted in greater intention (p = .049) to use e-cigarettes and more positive attitudes (p = .019). Viewing advertisements (vs. peer-generated posts) resulted in greater willingness and intention (p-values <.01) to use e-cigarettes, more positive attitudes (p = .003), and greater norm perceptions (p = .009). The interaction effect of post source by post content was not significant for any of the outcomes (all p-values >.529).Conclusions: Greater social media use and heavier exposure to advertisements and e-cigarette content in social media posts are associated with a greater risk for e-cigarette use among adolescents. Regulatory action is needed to prohibit sponsored e-cigarette content on social media platforms used by youth.Implications: Adolescents who use social media intensely may be at higher risk for e-cigarette use. Even brief exposure to e-cigarette content on social media was associated with greater intention to use and more positive attitudes toward e-cigarettes. Regulatory action should be taken to prohibit sponsored e-cigarette content on social media used by young people, including posts by influencers who appeal to young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is the leading cause of disability in the developed world, yet broadly effective treatments remain elusive. Up to 40% of patients with depression are unresponsive to at least two trials of antidepressant medication and thus have "treatment-resistant depression" (TRD). There is an urgent need for cost-effective, non-pharmacologic, evidence-based treatments for TRD. Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) is an effective treatment for relapse prevention and residual depression in major depression, but has not been previously studied in patients with TRD in a large randomized trial. Methods/Design: The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether MBCT is an effective augmentation of antidepressants for adults with MDD who failed to respond to standard pharmacotherapy. MBCT was compared to an active control condition, the Health-Enhancement Program (HEP), which incorporates physical activity, functional movement, music therapy and nutritional advice. HEP was designed as a comparator condition for mindfulness-based interventions to control for non-specific effects. Originally investigated in a non-clinical sample to promote stress reduction, HEP was adapted for a depressed population for this study. Individuals age 18 and older with moderate to severe TRD, who failed to respond to at least two trials of antidepressants in the current episode, were recruited to participate. All participants were taking antidepressants (Treatment as usual; TAU) at the time of enrollment. After signing an informed consent, participants were randomly assigned to either MBCT or HEP condition. Participants were followed for 1 year and assessed at weeks 1-7, 8, 24, 36, and 52. Change in depression severity, rate of treatment response and remission after 8 weeks were the primary outcomes measured by the clinician-rated Hamilton Depression Severity Rating (HAM-D) 17-item scale. The participant-rated Quick Inventory of Depression Symptomology (QIDS-SR) 16-item scale was the secondary outcome measure of depression severity, response, and remission. Discussion: Treatment-resistant depression entails significant morbidity and has few effective treatments. We studied the effect of augmenting antidepressant medication with MBCT, compared with a HEP control, for patients with TRD. Analyses will focus on clinician and patient assessment of depression, participants' clinical global impression change, employment and social functioning scores and quality of life and satisfaction ratings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. We evaluated the efficacy of a hepatitis care coordination intervention to improve linkage to hepatitis A virus (HAV) and hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccination and clinical evaluation of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection among methadone maintenance patients. Methods. We conducted a randomized controlled trial of 489 participants from methadone maintenance treatment programs in San Francisco, California, and New York City from February 2008 through June 2011. We randomized participants to a control arm (n = 245) and an intervention arm (n = 244), which included on-site screening, motivational-enhanced education and counseling, on-site vaccination, and case management services. Results. Compared with the control group, intervention group participants were significantly more likely (odds ratio [OR] = 41.8; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 19.4, 90.0) to receive their first vaccine dose within 30 days and to receive an HCV evaluation within 6 months (OR = 4.10; 95% CI = 2.35, 7.17). A combined intervention adherence outcome that measured adherence to HAV-HBV vaccination, HCV evaluation, or both strongly favored the intervention group (OR = 8.70; 95% CI = 5.56, 13.61). Conclusions. Hepatitis care coordination was efficacious in increasing adherence to HAV-HBV vaccination and HCV clinical evaluation among methadone patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: This trial investigated whether a Facebook smoking cessation intervention culturally tailored to young sexual and gender minority (SGM) smokers (versus non-tailored) would increase smoking abstinence., Methods: Participants were 165 SGM young adult US smokers (age 18-25) recruited from Facebook in April 2018 and randomized to an SGM-tailored (POP; N = 84) or non-tailored (TSP-SGM; N = 81) intervention. Interventions delivered weekly live counseling sessions and 90 daily Facebook posts to participants in Facebook groups. Primary analyses compared POP and TSP-SGM on biochemically verified smoking abstinence (yes/no; primary outcome), self-reported 7-day point prevalence abstinence (yes/no), reduction in cigarettes per week by 50+% from baseline (yes/no), making a quit attempt during treatment (yes/no), and stage of change (precontemplation/contemplation vs. preparation/action). Supplemental analyses compared POP to two historical control groups., Results: POP participants were more likely than TSP-SGM participants to report smoking abstinence at 3 (23.8% vs. 12.3%; OR = 2.50; p = .03) and 6 months (34.5% vs. 12.3%; OR = 4.06; p < .001) and reduction in smoking at 3 months (52.4% vs. 39.5%; OR = 2.11; p = .03). Biochemically verified smoking abstinence did not significantly differ between POP and TSP-SGM at 3 (OR = 2.00; p = .33) or 6 months (OR = 3.12; p = .08), potentially due to challenges with remote biochemical verification. In supplemental analyses, POP participants were more likely to report abstinence at 3 (OR = 6.82, p = .01) and 6 (OR = 2.75, p = .03) months and reduced smoking at 3 months (OR = 2.72, p = .01) than participants who received a referral to Smokefree.gov., Conclusions: This pilot study provides preliminary support for the effectiveness of a Facebook smoking cessation intervention tailored to SGM young adults., Implications: SGM individuals have disproportionately high smoking prevalence. It is unclear whether smoking cessation interventions culturally tailored to the SGM community are more effective than non-tailored interventions. This pilot trial found preliminary evidence that an SGM-tailored Facebook smoking cessation intervention increased reported abstinence from smoking, compared to a non-tailored intervention., Trial Registration: NCT03259360., (© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco. All rights reserved.For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Aims: To develop and validate a measure of smokers' expectancies for the abstinence process upon quitting smoking: the Smoking Abstinence Questionnaire (SAQ)., Design: Principal component analysis and other psychometric analyses of self-report data., Setting: San Francisco, California., Participants: A total of 507 adult smokers of at least 10 cigarettes per day diverse in gender, sexual orientation and ethnoracial status., Measurements: The primary measure was a draft version of the SAQ. Additional measures assessed a variety of other smoking-related constructs., Findings: Analyses yielded 10 scales of the SAQ: Withdrawal, Social Improvement/Non-smoker Identity, Adverse Outcomes, Treatment Effectiveness, Common Reasons, Barriers to Treatment, Social Support, Optimistic Outcomes, Coffee Use and Weight Gain. The SAQ scales demonstrated internal consistencies ranging from 0.62 to 0.85 and were associated with tobacco dependence, motivation to quit, abstinence self-efficacy, withdrawal symptoms, dietary restraint, shape and weight concern and tobacco use expectancies. The SAQ predicted smoking-related constructs above and beyond tobacco use expectancies, suggesting that abstinence-related expectancies and tobacco use expectancies are distinct from one another., Conclusions: A newly developed questionnaire, the Smoking Abstinence Questionnaire, appears to capture reliably smokers' expectancies for abstinence (Withdrawal, Social Improvement/Non-smoker Identity, Adverse Outcomes, Common Reasons, Optimistic Outcomes, Coffee Use, and Weight Gain) and expectancies related to the success of a quit attempt (Treatment Effectiveness, Barriers to Treatment and Social Support). It remains to be seen how far any of these expectancies predict attempts to quit, withdrawal, treatment utilization and response and quitting success above and beyond existing measures., (© 2011 The Authors, Addiction © 2011 Society for the Study of Addiction.)

Objective: To analyze the relationship between perinatal drug/alcohol use and maternal, fetal, neonatal, and postneonatal mortality., Study Design: Linked California discharge, birth and death certificate data from 1991-1998 were used to identify drug/alcohol-diagnosed births. Mortality relative risk (RR) ratios were calculated and logistic models were generated for mortality outcomes., Results: Among 4,536,701 birth records, 1.20% contained drug/alcohol discharge diagnostic codes (n=54,290). The unadjusted RRs for maternal (RR=2.7), fetal (RR=1.3), neonatal (RR=2.4), and postneonatal (RR=4.3) mortality were increased for drug/alcohol-diagnosed births. After controlling for potential confounding, the odds of maternal death for cocaine use (OR=2.15) remained significant as did amphetamine (OR=1.77), cocaine (OR=1.43), polydrug (OR=2.01) and other drug/alcohol use (OR=1.79) for postneonatal mortality., Conclusions: The association of cocaine use with maternal mortality and any drug/alcohol use with postneonatal mortality supports screening and identifying women using illicit drugs and alcohol during pregnancy. Increased collaboration with drug treatment programs and closer follow-up for drug-using women and their children may improve mortality outcomes.