Ariadna Forray, MD
Cards
Education
Harvard Medical School
Bryn Mawr College, Biology - Neuroscience
Training
Yale School of Medicine
Yale School of Medicine
Additional Titles
Chief, Psychological Medicine Section, Psychiatry
Director, Center for Wellbeing of Women and Mothers, Psychiatry
Yale Medical Director, ACCESS Mental Health for Moms, CT Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services
Education
Harvard Medical School
Bryn Mawr College, Biology - Neuroscience
Training
Yale School of Medicine
Yale School of Medicine
Additional Titles
Chief, Psychological Medicine Section, Psychiatry
Director, Center for Wellbeing of Women and Mothers, Psychiatry
Yale Medical Director, ACCESS Mental Health for Moms, CT Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services
Education
Harvard Medical School
Bryn Mawr College, Biology - Neuroscience
Training
Yale School of Medicine
Yale School of Medicine
About
Titles
Associate Professor of Psychiatry
Chief, Psychological Medicine Section, Psychiatry; Director, Center for Wellbeing of Women and Mothers, Psychiatry
Positions outside Yale
Yale Medical Director, ACCESS Mental Health for Moms, CT Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services
Biography
Dr. Ariadna Forray received her B.A. in biology and neuroscience from Bryn Mawr and her M.D. from Harvard. She completed her residency training in psychiatry at Yale and has been a faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry since then. She is the Director of the Center for Wellness of Women and Mothers, a reproductive psychiatry research program. As a principal investigator and co-investigator on numerous federally funded grants, she has developed and implemented addiction treatment interventions for perinatal patients.
Clinically, Dr. Forray is a consultation-liaison psychiatrist at Yale New Haven Hospital, where she is the Section Chief of Psychological Medicine, which consists of traditional and proactive psychiatric consult services on medical and surgical inpatient units and over 15 integrated psychiatry and behavioral health programs in diverse medical and surgical outpatient settings. She is also the Yale Director for the ACCESS Mental Health for Moms program in Connecticut, which provides psychiatric expertise and consultation to medical providers treating perinatal women presenting with mental health or substance use concerns.
Appointments
Psychiatry
Associate Professor on TermPrimary
Other Departments & Organizations
Education & Training
- Resident
- Yale School of Medicine
- Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Psychiatry
- Yale School of Medicine
- Intern
- Yale-New Haven Hospital
- MD
- Harvard Medical School
- BA
- Bryn Mawr College, Biology - Neuroscience
Research
Overview
The overarching goal of Dr. Forray’s research is to address our knowledge gap and lack of treatments for substance use and psychiatric disorders in the perinatal period. Her early work focused on perinatal mental health and specifically examined the different manifestations and impact of anxiety disorders in pregnancy. She explored the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in pregnant women with prior pregnancy complications and the effect of pregnancy, childbirth, and menstruation on the onset of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Her exploration of the role of reproductive hormones in the presentation of psychiatric disorders led to her current research developing novel interventions for the treatment of substance use disorders in pregnancy and postpartum.
She published the first study to examine pregnancy-related abstinence and postpartum relapse into substance use prospectively. As a principal investigator (PI) and co-investigator on several federally funded grants, she has developed and implemented addiction and mental health treatment interventions. Some of her work includes a National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA)-funded study on the use of progesterone as a postpartum smoking relapse prevention treatment, a National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD)-funded research testing an innovative technique using smartphones to administer attentional bias modification for smoking-related cues as a postpartum relapse prevention intervention for Black and Hispanic perinatal women, and a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI)-funded clustered randomized trial evaluating the effectiveness of two models for providing support to obstetricians caring for pregnant and postpartum women with an opioid use disorder across 12 sites in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
Medical Research Interests
ORCID
0000-0002-5806-8767- View Lab Website
Center for Wellbeing of Women and Mothers
Research at a Glance
Research Interests
Yale Co-Authors
Publications Timeline
Substance-Related Disorders
Postpartum Period
Motivational Interviewing
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Tobacco Use Disorder
Depression, Postpartum
Kimberly Yonkers, MD
Joy S. Kaufman, PhD
Paula Zimbrean, MD, FAPA, FACLP
Srinivas Muvvala, MD, MPH
Sandra Ann Springer, MD
Steve Martino, PhD
Publications
2024
Perceptions of Care and Perceived Discrimination: A Qualitative Assessment of Adults Living with Sickle Cell Disease
Crusto C, Kaufman J, Harvanek Z, Nelson C, Forray A. Perceptions of Care and Perceived Discrimination: A Qualitative Assessment of Adults Living with Sickle Cell Disease. Journal Of Racial And Ethnic Health Disparities 2024, 1-10. PMID: 39227547, DOI: 10.1007/s40615-024-02153-3.Peer-Reviewed Original ResearchConceptsSickle cell diseaseHealth care providersExperiences of adultsDiagnosis of sickle cell diseaseExperiences of discriminationAssessment of adultsCare providersExperiences of biasPublic health concernTertiary medical centerThematic analysisFocus groupsPoor communicationCell diseaseOutpatient clinicTeaching hospitalPerceived discriminationMedical CenterHealth concernAverage ageParticipantsCareEthnic groupsProvidersHealthReporting Perinatal Substance Use to Child Protective Services: Obstetric Provider Perspectives on the Impact on Care
Kaufman J, Yonkers K, Maltz C, Friedhoff C, Tobon A, Mele A, Tessier-Kay M, Grechukhina O, Lipkind H, Byatt N, Forray A. Reporting Perinatal Substance Use to Child Protective Services: Obstetric Provider Perspectives on the Impact on Care. Journal Of Women's Health 2024, 33: 1501-1508. PMID: 38770764, DOI: 10.1089/jwh.2023.0822.Peer-Reviewed Original ResearchConceptsOpioid use disorderProvider perspectiveKey informant interviewsCPS involvementNurse practitionersAffect careObstetric patientsCareInformant interviewsPostpartum patientsReporting requirementsCPS reportsProvidersContent analysisPerinatal individualsUse disorderSocial workersThematic areasPatientsFearNursesMandated reportersObstetriciansPostpartumStaffProvider–patient relationships and trauma among pregnant patients with opioid‐use disorder
Doernberg M, Gilstad‐Hayden K, Yonkers K, Forray A. Provider–patient relationships and trauma among pregnant patients with opioid‐use disorder. American Journal On Addictions 2024, 33: 569-575. PMID: 38685767, DOI: 10.1111/ajad.13570.Peer-Reviewed Original ResearchConceptsProbable posttraumatic stress disorderOpioid-use disorderPosttraumatic stress disorderPregnant patientsAlliance ScaleProvider-patient relationshipStress disorderFifth EditionPregnant participantsIntegration subscaleCommunication subscaleTrauma-informed practicesTreatment trialsWeeks of pregnancyDemographic variablesDisordersSubscalesVulnerable patient populationObstetric providersPrenatal carePatient populationSevere traumaPatientsScoresParticipantsPlacental cytochrome P450 methylomes in infants exposed to prenatal opioids: exploring the effects of neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome on health horizons
Radhakrishna U, Sadhasivam S, Radhakrishnan R, Forray A, Muvvala S, Metpally R, Patel S, Rawal R, Vishweswaraiah S, Bahado-Singh R, Nath S. Placental cytochrome P450 methylomes in infants exposed to prenatal opioids: exploring the effects of neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome on health horizons. Frontiers In Genetics 2024, 14: 1292148. PMID: 38264209, PMCID: PMC10805101, DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2023.1292148.Peer-Reviewed Original ResearchConceptsNeonatal opioid withdrawal syndromeOpioid withdrawal syndromePlacental tissueWithdrawal syndromeLong-term clinical implicationsPrenatal opioid exposureNOWS treatmentPrenatal opioidsOpioid exposureOpioid effectsOpioid usePharmacologic treatmentCYP genesControl mothersMultiple CYP genesValuable biomarkerClinical implicationsInfantsPersonalized treatmentOpioidsCytochrome P450 enzymesInfinium MethylationEPIC BeadChipTreatmentIllumina Infinium MethylationEPIC BeadChipSyndrome
2023
Pilot study of attentional retraining for postpartum smoking relapse
Forray A, Gunter-Riley R, Maltz C, Waters A. Pilot study of attentional retraining for postpartum smoking relapse. Frontiers In Psychiatry 2023, 14: 1231702. PMID: 37900298, PMCID: PMC10603252, DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1231702.Peer-Reviewed Original ResearchConceptsAttentional retrainingEcological momentary assessment methodologySmoking-related stimuliRelapse prevention interventionsPostpartum smoking relapseAttentional biasesAttentional biasCognitive processesSmoking cuesRelapse processAbstinent smokersSmoking relapseTreatment attendanceMobile interventionsLarge sampleCravingEMA methodologyPilot studyExploratory analysisPrevention interventionsInterventionRelapse postpartumFormer smokersTobacco smokingLeading causeEffectiveness of smoking cessation interventions among pregnant women: An updated systematic review and meta-analysis
Vila-Farinas A, Pérez-Rios M, Montes-Martinez A, Ruano-Ravina A, Forray A, Rey-Brandariz J, Candal-Pedreira C, Fernández E, Casal-Acción B, Varela-Lema L. Effectiveness of smoking cessation interventions among pregnant women: An updated systematic review and meta-analysis. Addictive Behaviors 2023, 148: 107854. PMID: 37683574, DOI: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2023.107854.Peer-Reviewed Original ResearchConceptsNicotine replacement therapyRandomized clinical trialsLong-term nicotine replacement therapyPregnant womenCessation interventionsSystematic reviewSocioeconomic statusNon-pharmacological interventionsEffectiveness of pharmacologicalRisk of biasRoB 2 toolLow socioeconomic statusHigher socioeconomic statusPrimary search strategyHeavy smokersRoutine careReplacement therapySmoking cessationPharmacologic interventionsClinical trialsEligible studiesSTUDY APPRAISALDaily smokersEligibility criteriaPsychosocial interventionsPlacental microRNA methylome signatures may serve as biomarkers and therapeutic targets for prenatally opioid-exposed infants with neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome
Radhakrishna U, Nath S, Uppala L, Veerappa A, Forray A, Muvvala S, Metpally R, Crist R, Berrettini W, Mausi L, Vishweswaraiah S, Bahado-Singh R. Placental microRNA methylome signatures may serve as biomarkers and therapeutic targets for prenatally opioid-exposed infants with neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome. Frontiers In Genetics 2023, 14: 1215472. PMID: 37434949, PMCID: PMC10332887, DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2023.1215472.Peer-Reviewed Original ResearchReproductive Psychiatry
Forray A, McMahon J. Reproductive Psychiatry. 2023 DOI: 10.1016/b978-0-323-95702-1.00040-3.Peer-Reviewed Original ResearchConceptsPsychiatric disordersExacerbation of psychiatric symptomsRisks of untreated psychiatric illnessTreating mood symptomsUntreated psychiatric illnessFemale sexTreatment of premenstrual disordersPerinatal periodAntipsychotic useMood symptomsPsychiatric symptomsPsychiatric illnessReproductive-age patientsSymptom stabilityPostpartum depressionPremenstrual disordersMale sexDisordersPregnant individualsSymptomsPerimenopausal symptomsReproductive risksUnique manifestationUnique considerationsBirth
2022
COVID-19 Traumatic Disaster Appraisal and Stress Symptoms Among Health Care Workers
Olson K, Fogelman N, Maturo L, Alvarado J, Ball S, Forray A, Hu M, Ivy M, Kapo J, Krystal J, Mayes L, Rohrbaugh R, Southwick S, Tebes J, Wassel B, Sinha R. COVID-19 Traumatic Disaster Appraisal and Stress Symptoms Among Health Care Workers. Journal Of Occupational And Environmental Medicine 2022, 64: 934-941. PMID: 35959912, PMCID: PMC9640251, DOI: 10.1097/jom.0000000000002673.Peer-Reviewed Original ResearchMeSH Keywords and ConceptsConceptsHealth care workersCare workersChronic mental healthCross-sectional evaluationTotal Worker HealthAdverse psychological outcomesPredictive factorsSevere stress eventsResponse rateCare qualityMental healthAdverse effectsPrivate practitionersHigh levelsWorkers' healthSense of controlStress symptomsPsychological outcomesLevel of educationGreater proportionHealthPandemicStress eventsSymptomsWorkersGender differences among persons entering medication treatment for opioid use disorder in the community
Di Paola A, Taweh N, Biondi BE, Forray A, Frank CA, Shaw A, Springer SA. Gender differences among persons entering medication treatment for opioid use disorder in the community. American Journal On Addictions 2022, 31: 390-395. PMID: 35652902, PMCID: PMC9463117, DOI: 10.1111/ajad.13304.Peer-Reviewed Original ResearchMeSH Keywords and ConceptsConceptsOpioid use disorderUse disordersQuality of lifeDSM-5 diagnosisPosttraumatic stress disorderOpioid relapseMedication useMedication historyMedication treatmentPsychiatric comorbidityPsychiatric medicationsHigh riskMOUDDepression severityGreater prevalenceGender differencesBaseline assessmentPsychological QoL.Disorder screeningStress disorderMultidisciplinary programGeneralized anxietyWomenMedicationsDisorders
Clinical Trials
Current Trials
Support Models for Addiction Related Treatment (SMART) Trial of Opioid Use Disorder in Pregnant Women
HIC ID2000027031RolePrincipal InvestigatorPrimary Completion Date04/28/2023Recruiting ParticipantsGenderFemaleAge18+ yearsPerinatal Attentional Retraining Intervention for Smoking (PARIS)
HIC ID1008007245RolePrincipal InvestigatorPrimary Completion Date06/01/2023Recruiting ParticipantsGenderFemaleAge18 years - 40 years
Academic Achievements & Community Involvement
activity Psychiatric Research and Clinical Practice
Journal ServiceAssociate EditorDetails04/01/2024 - Presenthonor Minority Student Summer Fellowship
National AwardAmerican Psychiatric AssociationDetails06/01/2004United States
Clinical Care
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Overview
Ariadna Forray, MD, is a psychiatrist who treats medical and surgical patients at Yale New Haven Hospital who have psychiatric needs. She specializes in psychiatric and substance-use disorders in unique and complex patient populations that include pregnant and postpartum women, and adults living with sickle cell disease.
One of the few psychiatrists in the U.S. with expertise in mental health issues in patients with sickle cell disease, Dr. Forray was recruited in 2012 as the psychiatry director of a newly developed, interdisciplinary Yale Medicine Adult Sickle Cell Program, which successfully transitioned care from high-cost inpatient and emergency care to integrated outpatient services, and led to improved care and services.
Dr. Forray also has a keen interest in mental health in women across the reproductive lifespan, which she says was inspired by an experience during her residency, when a patient was transferred to the ICU following an intentional overdose. “This was a 30-year-old postpartum woman, who in the two months following the birth of her first child had attempted suicide twice and failed three different medication trials with seven different medications,” Dr. Forray says. “When I met her, I was struck by how much she was suffering—she was restless, she couldn’t sleep, she was extremely anxious, and ruminated over her baby’s well-being to a degree that was unhealthy.” The case inspired her to learn more about why only some postpartum women develop mental health issues, what role hormones might play, and how such struggles might impact a newborn infant. “It was this curiosity combined with the desire to help women during this vulnerable period of their life that defined my path in psychiatry,” she says.
In addition to her other roles, Dr. Forray is the director of the Center for Well-being of Women and Mothers, a reproductive psychiatry research program at Yale, where she studies novel treatments for perinatal substance use. She is currently working on a study that is evaluating two models to help obstetrical providers deliver substance-use treatment to pregnant women with an opioid use disorder across 12 sites in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
Clinical Specialties
Fact Sheets
Quit Smoking
Learn More on Yale Medicine
Board Certifications
Addiction Medicine (Preventive Medicine)
- Certification Organization
- AB of Preventive Medicine
- Original Certification Date
- 2019
Addiction Medicine
- Certification Organization
- AB of Addiction Medicine
- Original Certification Date
- 2012
Psychiatry
- Certification Organization
- AB of Psychiatry & Neurology
- Original Certification Date
- 2010
News
News
- December 20, 2024Source: WebMD
Quitting Cannabis During Pregnancy: Your FAQs Answered
- June 03, 2024Source: NBC TV-WGRZ
Doctors Have a New Way to Treat Postpartum Depression
- March 20, 2024
The evolution of psychiatry
- November 14, 2023
Ariadna Forray, MD, Embraces Diversity as a Bilingual and Bicultural Reproductive Psychiatrist at Yale