Psych News Alert: June 2025

Tuesday, June 3, 2025

Just a Third of SUD Treatment Facilities Offer Perinatal Programs

Less than one-third of facilities that offer treatment for substance use disorder (SUD) or combined SUD and mental health disorders offer a perinatal program, a study in the Journal of Substance Use and Addiction Treatment has found.

Brooke N. Lombardi, Ph.D., M.S.W., of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and colleagues analyzed data from the 2022 National Substance Use and Mental Health Services Survey, an annual survey of all known public and private SUD and mental health treatment facilities in the United States. The sample consisted of 6,995 facilities providing only SUD treatment (SUD-only) and 9,134 facilities offering combined SUD and mental health treatment.

Overall, only 32.7% of SUD-only facilities and 31.1% of combined facilities reported offering a program or group that is specifically tailored for pregnant/postpartum women.

“While these percentages are relatively low, they represent an increase from those reported in previous research, suggesting that the availability of these essential programs may be growing,” Lombardi and colleagues wrote.

Services that were considered under-provided at these facilities included:

Detoxification (31.9% of SUD-only, 24.3% of SUD and mental health)
Integrated primary care (20.9% of SUD-only, 38.4% of SUD and mental health)
Childcare (11.4% of SUD-only, 7.9% of SUD and mental health)
Beds for children (8.8% of SUD-only, 4% of SUD and mental health)

However, the researchers noted that more than half of treatment facilities provided other services identified in prior research as particularly important for the perinatal population, including:

Assistance with accessing social services (80.9% of SUD-only, 80.2% of SUD and mental health)
Telehealth (75.4% of SUD-only, 87% of SUD and mental health)
Trauma-related therapy (69.9% of SUD-only, 90.5% of SUD and mental health)
Transportation assistance (52.2% of SUD-only, 56.3% of SUD and mental health)

Available services were primarily offered in outpatient settings, with less than 25% of facilities providing residential services and less than 10 % offering inpatient care.

“Effective care for perinatal SUDs and [mental health disorders] must extend beyond the provision of behavioral health treatment alone,” the researchers wrote. “To promote the health of both parents and children, facilities must also provide essential medical services such as integrated primary care and detoxification. Additionally, increasing the availability of childcare services and accommodations for clients’ children is crucial for maintaining the integrity of the parent-child relationship.”

For related information, see the Psychiatric News article “It Takes a Village: Mothers With SUDs Often Lack Support in Getting Treatment.”

(Image: Getty Images/iStock/ljubaphoto)

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Monday, June 2, 2025

ACT-Based Group Therapy Improves Management of Comorbid Asthma and ADHD

A group intervention based on acceptance and commitment therapy can help parents of children with comorbid asthma and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) build resilience and self-efficacy—leading to better health outcomes for the children in the long term. These findings were published today in JAMA Pediatrics.

Yuen Yu Chong, Ph.D., of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and colleagues enrolled 118 parents who had a child between ages 3 and 11 with a diagnosis of asthma and ADHD. Half the parents received usual asthma care, which included regular follow-ups, one group educational session on asthma management, and referrals for ADHD services. The other half received usual care along with six weeks of acceptance and commitment therapy for parenting in asthma management (ACT-PAM); this small-group therapy taught parents how to make action plans to manage their child’s asthma and ADHD using principles such as acceptance, mindfulness, and positive parenting.

Twelve months after the intervention ended, the parents who received ACT-PAM—and their children—showed significant improvements in a variety of measures. Children in the ACT-PAM group had about 67% fewer unscheduled health care visits for asthma exacerbations on average compared with the usual care group (0.5 versus 1.3). “While modest, this reduction is clinically meaningful, particularly for children with ADHD, who face exacerbation risk due to attentional and behavioral challenges,” the researchers wrote.

Parents in ACT-PAM also reported greater reductions in their child’s ADHD symptoms than the usual care group, as well as greater reductions in their own psychological inflexibility and greater confidence in managing their child’s asthma.

“Integrating positive parenting with ACT provided a holistic intervention that improved asthma management, behavioral outcomes, and parental resilience, which are often neglected in traditional single-diagnosis asthma care,” Chong and colleagues wrote. Further, “ACT helped parents shift from experiential avoidance to values-based caregiving, indirectly improving child ADHD outcomes.”

For related information, see the American Journal of Psychotherapy article “Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Posttraumatic Psychopathology: A Group-Based Telehealth Intervention.”

(Image: Getty Images/iStock/FatCamera)