Child &adolescent psychiatry

OBJECTIVE: This study examined the current state of forensic education among child and adolescent psychiatry (CAP) fellowship programs, regarding specific forensic topics, teaching resources, methods, and experiences. The authors aimed to gather and analyze this data to assess the need for additional standardization of forensic psychiatry education in CAP fellowship, such as broader access to resources, and/or inform the development of a standardized curriculum, including milestones, in child and adolescent forensic psychiatry...

This study examined predictors of, and associations between, self-concept, demographic variables, and clinical measures in fifty-eight children and adolescents with Persistent Tic Disorder (PTD; 44 males, Mage  = 11.9 years, SD = 2.74). Participants completed measures that assessed self-concept, tic severity, tic-related impairment, and comorbid psychological symptoms. Results showed that generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, persistent depressive disorder, total tic severity, number and complexity of tics, and total and social tic-related impairment were associated with self-concept...

Childhood temperament has a well-documented influence on later life outcomes, notably behavior problems, quality of interpersonal relationships, and academic achievement. However, there is at present a lack of brief measures that assess temperament characteristics which are represented across models of temperament in the late childhood and early adolescence period. To redress this gap, the aim of the current study was to develop and validate a short questionnaire that extends an earlier integrative measure of temperament, the Integrative Child Temperament Inventory (ICTI) to the late childhood period...

BACKGROUND: Why do potentially traumatic events (PTEs) and substance use (SU) so commonly co-occur during adolescence? Causal hypotheses developed from the study of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance use disorder (SUD) among adults have not yet been subject to rigorous theoretical analysis or empirical tests among adolescents with the precursors to these disorders: PTEs and SU. Establishing causality demands accounting for various factors (e.g. genetics, parent education, race/ethnicity) that distinguish youth endorsing PTEs and SU from those who do not, a step often overlooked in previous research...

BACKGROUND: Depression has gradually become a common psychological disorder among children and adolescents. Depression in children and adolescents affects their physical and mental development. Psychotherapy is considered to be one of the main treatment options for depressed children and adolescents. However, our understanding of the global performance and progress of psychological interventions for depression in children and adolescents (PIDCA) research is limited. AIM: To identify collaborative research networks in this field and explore the current research status and hotspots through bibliometrics...

Practicing newly acquired skills in different contexts is considered a crucial aspect of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for anxiety disorders (Peris et al. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 56:1043-1052, 2017; Stewart et al. Prof Psychol Res Pract 47:303-311, 2016). Learning to cope with feared stimuli in different situations allows for generalization of learned skills, and experiencing non-occurrence of the feared outcome helps in developing non-catastrophic associations that may enhance treatment outcomes (Bandarian-Balooch et al...

Behavioural Activation (BA)-a brief therapy based on the scheduling of enjoyable, purposeful and rewarding activities-is an effective and cost-effective treatment for depression in adults that shows promise for children and adolescents. We provide an update on a previous systematic review of evidence on BA-delivered in-person, telephone, or online-for depression and comorbid anxiety in children and adolescents. We conducted systematic literature searches in 6 databases up to February 2024. We included all study designs evaluating BA with participants up to 18 years old with diagnosable depression, as established by a validated screening tool or diagnostic manual...

Over 50% of children with a parent with severe mental illness will develop mental illness by early adulthood. However, intergenerational transmission of risk for mental illness in one's children is insufficiently considered in clinical practice, nor is it sufficiently utilised into diagnostics and care for children of ill parents. This leads to delays in diagnosing young offspring and missed opportunities for protective actions and resilience strengthening. Prior twin, family, and adoption studies suggest that the aetiology of mental illness is governed by a complex interplay of genetic and environmental factors, potentially mediated by changes in epigenetic programming and brain development...

This study aimed to investigate agreement and discrepancies between parent proxy- and adolescent self-reports on assessments of adolescents' health-related quality of life (HRQoL), and the role that individual factors may play in parent-adolescent agreement, in a sample of adolescents with Tourette syndrome (TS) compared to a control group of healthy adolescents. Adolescents aged 12-18 years diagnosed with TS were recruited with their parents from primary and secondary referral centres. Adolescent healthy controls were matched for gender and age...

BACKGROUND: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are well-established risk factors for self-harm and depression. However, despite their high comorbidity, there has been little focus on the impact of developmental timing and the duration of exposure to ACEs on co-occurring self-harm and depression. METHODS: Data were utilised from over 22,000 children and adolescents participating in three UK cohorts, followed up longitudinally for 14-18 years: the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) and the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study...

BACKGROUND: Mental disorders are common in childhood, but many young people do not receive adequate professional support. Help-seeking interventions may bridge this treatment gap, however, there is limited research on interventions for primary-school children. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of an emotion literacy program at increasing literacy, reducing stigma, and promoting help-seeking in children aged 8-10 years. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: A two-arm pragmatic cluster-controlled trial will compare Thriving Minds, an emotion literacy program for middle primary school children, to a wait-list control condition...

BACKGROUND: Use of psychostimulants and relative drugs has increased worldwide in treatment of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adolescents and adults. Recent studies suggest a potential association between use of psychostimulants and psychotic symptoms. The risk may not be the same between different psychostimulants. OBJECTIVE: To assess whether amphetamine or atomoxetine use is associated with a higher risk of reporting symptoms of psychosis than methylphenidate use in adolescents and adults, particularly in patients with ADHD...

Objectives: This study aimed to examine switch from first-line methylphenidate (MPH) to lisdexamfetamine (LDX) in school-aged children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Methods: This is a retrospective observational study based on systematic review of patient records of all children (7-13 years) diagnosed with ADHD and referred to a Danish specialized outpatient clinic. The study included 394 children switching from MPH to LDX as either second-line or third-line treatment (atomoxetine [ATX] as second-line treatment) during the study period from April 1, 2013, to November 5, 2019...

Antipsychotic prescribing trends vary internationally, albeit off-label use remains high (i.e., target symptoms). We aim to describe antipsychotic use, target conditions, target symptoms and dosing regimens in children and adolescents in Ireland. We used a sampled cohort from a national audit of children and adolescents attending mental health services with predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria from Jul-2021 to Dec-2021 who were prescribed at least one psychotropic medication and up to and including 17-years of age (n = 3528)...

INTRODUCTION: The Patient Journey Project aimed to analyze the scenario among Italian Mental Health Services (MHS) to understand the clinical interventions that are properly implemented and the ones deserving further implementation to design an effective treatment plan for patients living with schizophrenia (PLWS). METHODS: The 60-items survey was co-designed with all the stakeholders (clinicians, expert patients and caregivers) involved in the Patient Journey and focused on three phases of schizophrenia course: early detection and management, acute phase management, long-term management/continuity of care...

INTRODUCTION: As adolescents leave high school, plans for the future are of great importance. Future orientation reflects positive thoughts regarding further education, employment, and family life. While future orientation has been found to affect behavior problems, the influence of behavior problems on future orientation is mainly unknown. Positive parent-child and peer relations may boost positive outlooks, but the interplay of behavior problems and social relations for future orientation remains to be studied...

It can be challenging to assign patients to the appropriate intervention programs, as risk and protective factors for developing emotional disorders are multiple and shared across disorders. This study aimed to provide a theoretical and empirical approach to identify and categorise adolescents into different levels of severity. The risk of developing emotional symptoms was assessed in 1425 Spanish adolescents (M = 14.34, SD = 1.76; 59.9% women). Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) was conducted to identify subgroups based on their emotional symptom severity, risk, and resilience factors...

INTRODUCTION: It is important to promote resilience in preadolescence; however, there is limited research on children's understandings and experiences of resilience. Quantitative approaches may not capture dynamic and context-specific aspects of resilience. Resilience research has historically focused on white, middle-class Western adults and adolescents, creating an evidence gap regarding diverse experiences of resilience in middle childhood which could inform interventions. East London's Muslim community represents a diverse, growing population...

OBJECTIVE: Dramatic increases in rates of suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs) among youth highlights the need to pinpoint early risk factors. This study used intensive longitudinal sampling to assess concurrent associations between risk factors and STB status, how proximal changes in risk factors were related to STB status, and how risk factors prospectively predicted changes in STB status in a preadolescent sample enriched for early childhood psychopathology. METHOD: 192 participants were included from the Study Y, a longitudinal study of children with and without preschool depression...

School refusal (SR) is a form of school attendance problem (SAP) that requires specific mental health care. Despite improvements in the definition of SAPs, the course of SR is not well characterized. To explore three-year patterns of SR course in children, as reported by their parents, we deployed an anonymous web-based survey. We defined SR onset as the absence of ≥ 2 school weeks during one academic year, combined with emotional distress. We defined standard SR trajectories using sequence analysis of parents' recollection of three consecutive years of school attendance...