MIRECC / CoE

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In partnership with the interdisciplinary planning committee of the VHA Peer Specialist Webinar Series, and under the coordination of Dr. Anjana Muralidharan, the VISN 5 MIRECC co-hosted a webinar about the use of digital tools to facilitate peer support in the VHA. The webinar was well-attended and had a great interactive discussion! Check it out here: https://bcove.video/3i3Y3z4*

*This webinar was presented in July 2020. Because telehealth in the VA is growing and evolving rapidly, some of the information presented here may be out of date.

VISN 5 MIRECC Post-Doctoral Fellow in Mental Illness Research and Treatment, Arthur T. Ryan, and colleague, Jordan DeVylder¹, recently published a study that supports a relationship between psychotic symptoms and a history of solitary confinement. They found that formerly incarcerated individuals who reported psychotic symptoms or a schizophrenia diagnosis in the past year were approximately 50% more likely to report having experienced solitary confinement while incarcerated than those without psychotic symptoms. These results are particularly important to bring to light as social isolation may be associated with the development and worsening of psychosis (Hoffman, 2007).

The researchers encouraged future studies to examine more clearly the nature of the relationship between psychosis and solitary confinement. For example, does psychosis precede solitary confinement, or does solitary confinement precede psychosis? Answering this type of question could be an important next step in protecting individuals from the potential discrimination of being placed in solitary confinement based on behaviors resulting only from their psychotic illness. Additionally, future research could support the development of less punitive methods for managing psychotic behaviors among incarcerated individuals.

Drs. Ryan and DeVylder used a dataset from the self-reported second Survey of Police-Public Encounters (SPPEII; DeVylder et al., 2018), which, among other things, assesses police violence exposure, mental health symptoms, and crime involvement. The individuals that participated in the study were located in Baltimore, Maryland and New York City, New York and reported a lifetime incarceration history (17.6%) consistent with other large-scale U.S. population research (Bonczar, 2003).

Think the VISN 5 MIRECC Fellows are an impressive bunch? We sure do! Interested in joining the ranks? See our Fellowship Program in Mental Illness Research and Treatment page for more information!

Bibliography

1. Arthur T. Ryan , Jordan DeVylder , Previously Incarcerated Individuals with Psychotic Symptoms are More Likely to Report a History of Solitary Confinement, Psychiatry Research (2020), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2020.113064
2. Bonczar, T.P., 2003. Prevalence of Imprisonment in the US Population, 1974–2001 (No. NCJ 197976). U.S. Department of Justice.
3. DeVylder, J.E., Jun, H.-J., Fedina, L., Coleman, D., Anglin, D., Cogburn, C., Link, B., Barth, R.P., 2018. Association of exposure to police violence with prevalence of mental health symptoms among urban residents in the United States. JAMA Netw. Open 1, e184945. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2018.4945
4. Hoffman, R.E., 2007. A social deafferentation hypothesis for induction of active schizophrenia. Schizophr. Bull. 33, 1066–1070. https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbm079

¹Graduate School of Social Service, Fordham University, New York, NY, USA