Articles

The Imperforate Anus Psychosocial Questionnaire (IAPSQ): Its construction and psychometric properties

The origin of the present study was to develop the liaison work between the disciplines of child and adolescent psychiatry and paediatric surgery and nursing, so as to improve the quality of treatment and care...

Authors: Margret Nisell, Ulf Brodin, Kyllike Christensson and Per-Anders Rydelius

Drug monitoring in child and adolescent psychiatry for improved efficacy and safety of psychopharmacotherapy

Most psychotropic drugs used in the treatment of children and adolescents are applied "off label" with a direct risk of under- or overdosing and a delayed risk of long-term side effects. The selection of doses...

Authors: Claudia Mehler-Wex, Michael Kölch, Julia Kirchheiner, Gisela Antony, Jörg M Fegert and Manfred Gerlach

Mental health issues in unaccompanied refugee minors

Previous studies about unaccompanied refugee minors (URMs) showed that they are a highly vulnerable group who have greater psychiatric morbidity than the general population. This review focuses on mental healt...

Authors: Julia Huemer, Niranjan S Karnik, Sabine Voelkl-Kernstock, Elisabeth Granditsch, Kanita Dervic, Max H Friedrich and Hans Steiner

The child and adolescent psychiatry trials network (CAPTN): infrastructure development and lessons learned

In 2003, the National Institute of Mental Health funded the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Trials Network (CAPTN) under the Advanced Center for Services and Intervention Research (ACSIR) mechanism. At the tim...

Authors: Mark Shapiro, Susan G Silva, Scott Compton, Allan Chrisman, Joseph DeVeaugh-Geiss, Alfiee Breland-Noble, Douglas Kondo, Jerry Kirchner and John S March

The short-term safety and efficacy of fluoxetine in depressed adolescents with alcohol and cannabis use disorders: a pilot randomized placebo-controlled trial

The objective of this study was to examine whether fluoxetine was superior to placebo in the acute amelioration of depressive symptomatology in adolescents with depressive illness and a comorbid substance use ...

Authors: Robert L Findling, Maria E Pagano, Nora K McNamara, Robert J Stansbrey, Jon E Faber, Jacqui Lingler, Christine A Demeter, Denise Bedoya and Michael D Reed

Health risk behaviours among adolescents in the English-speaking Caribbean: a review

The aim of this paper was to review and summarize research on prevalence of health risk behaviours, their outcomes as well as risk and protective factors among adolescents in the English-speaking Caribbean.

Authors: Rohan G Maharaj, Paula Nunes and Shamin Renwick

Conventional intramuscular sedatives versus ziprasidone for severe agitation in adolescents: case-control study

The objective of this study was to compare intramuscular (IM) ziprasidone to conventional IM medications (haloperidol combined with lorazepam) for the treatment of severe agitation in adolescents (age 12–17).

Authors: William C Jangro, Horacio Preval, Robert Southard, Steven G Klotz and Andrew Francis

Parents' assessment of parent-child interaction interventions – a longitudinal study in 101 families

The aim of the study was to describe families with small children who participated in parent-child interaction interventions at four centres in Sweden, and to examine long term and short term changes regarding...

Authors: Kerstin Neander and Ingemar Engström

The clinical effectiveness of different parenting programmes for children with conduct problems: a systematic review of randomised controlled trials

Conduct problems are common, disabling and costly. The prognosis for children with conduct problems is poor, with outcomes in adulthood including criminal behaviour, alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic violence, ...

Authors: Janine Dretzke, Clare Davenport, Emma Frew, Jane Barlow, Sarah Stewart-Brown, Sue Bayliss, Rod S Taylor, Josie Sandercock and Chris Hyde

Estimating the number of children exposed to parental psychiatric disorders through a national health survey

Children whose parents have psychiatric disorders experience an increased risk of developing psychiatric disorders, and have higher rates of developmental problems and mortality. Assessing the size of this pop...

Authors: Diego G Bassani, Cintia V Padoin, Diane Philipp and Scott Veldhuizen

Morning and evening behavior in children and adolescents treated with atomoxetine once daily for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): Findings from two 24-week, open-label studies

The impact of once daily atomoxetine treatment on symptoms in children and adolescents with ADHD may vary over the day. In order to capture such variations, two studies were undertaken in children and adolesce...

Authors: Peter M Wehmeier, Ralf W Dittmann, Alexander Schacht, Karin Helsberg and Gerd Lehmkuhl

The Pediatric Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Treatment Study II: rationale, design and methods

This paper presents the rationale, design, and methods of the Pediatric Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Treatment Study II (POTS II), which investigates two different cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) augmentatio...

Authors: Jennifer B Freeman, Molly L Choate-Summers, Abbe M Garcia, Phoebe S Moore, Jeffrey J Sapyta, Muniya S Khanna, John S March, Edna B Foa and Martin E Franklin

Change in the direct cost of treatment for children and adolescents with hyperkinetic disorder in Germany over a period of four years

In many developed countries, the treatment of hyperkinetic disorder (or ADHD) consumes a considerable amount of resources. The primary aim of this study was to determine change in the direct cost of treatment ...

Authors: Peter M Wehmeier, Alexander Schacht and Aribert Rothenberger

"...because I am something special" or "I think I will be something like a guinea pig": information and assent of legal minors in clinical trials – assessment of understanding, appreciation and reasoning

The aim of this study is to assess and evaluate the capacities for understanding, appreciation and reasoning of legal minors with psychiatric disorders and their parents and their competence to consent or asse...

Authors: Michael Koelch, Hanneke Singer, Anja Prestel, Jessica Burkert, Ulrike Schulze and Jörg M Fegert

Facts, values, and Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): an update on the controversies

The Hastings Center, a bioethics research institute, is holding a series of 5 workshops to examine the controversies surrounding the use of medication to treat emotional and behavioral disturbances in children...

Authors: Erik Parens and Josephine Johnston

Psychiatrists' attitudes towards autonomy, best interests and compulsory treatment in anorexia nervosa: a questionnaire survey

The compulsory treatment of anorexia nervosa is a contentious issue. Research suggests that psychiatrists have a range of attitudes towards patients suffering from anorexia nervosa, and towards the use of comp...

Authors: Jacinta OA Tan, Helen A Doll, Raymond Fitzpatrick, Anne Stewart and Tony Hope

The ethics of psychopharmacological research in legal minors

Research in psychopharmacology for children and adolescents is fraught with ethical problems and tensions. This has practical consequences as it leads to a paucity of the research that is essential to support ...

Authors: Jacinta OA Tan and Michael Koelch

Pharmaceutical research in paediatric populations and the new EU Paediatric Legislation: an industry perspective

A large proportion of medicines used in children are prescribed off-label, and children have often been denied access to new or innovative medications. Because such situation is unethical, the need to obtain p...

Authors: Philippe Auby

Regulation (EC) No 1901/2006 on medicinal products for paediatric use & clinical research in vulnerable populations

Before any medicinal product is authorised for use in adults, it must undergo extensive pharmaceutical consistency and stability tests, toxicological tests and clinical trials to ensure that it is of high qual...

Authors: Birka Lehmann

Recent developments and strategies in pediatric pharmacology research in the USA

Research in pediatric pharmacology has undergone major changes in the last ten years, with an expansion in both publicly and privately funded activities. A number of pharmacokinetics studies and multi-site con...

Authors: Benedetto Vitiello

Special section on psychopharmacology trials in children and adolescents

For the first time, we publish a special section of four related articles in the online, open-access journal Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health.

Authors: Joerg M Fegert

Psychological complications of childhood chronic physical illness in Nigerian children and their mothers: the implication for developing pediatric liaison services

Pediatric liaison services attending to the psychological health needs of children with chronic physical illness are limited or virtually non-existent in Nigeria and most sub-Saharan African countries, and psy...

Authors: Muideen O Bakare, Olayinka O Omigbodun, Olugbenga B Kuteyi, Martin M Meremikwu and Ahamefule O Agomoh

Lack of association of genetic variants in genes of the endocannabinoid system with anorexia nervosa

Several lines of evidence indicate that the central cannabinoid receptor 1 (CNR1) as well as the major endocannabinoid degrading enzymes fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH), N-acylethanolamine-hydrolyzing acid a...

Authors: Timo Dirk Müller, Kathrin Reichwald, Günter Brönner, Jeanette Kirschner, Thuy Trang Nguyen, André Scherag, Wolfgang Herzog, Beate Herpertz-Dahlmann, Peter Lichtner, Thomas Meitinger, Matthias Platzer, Helmut Schäfer, Johannes Hebebrand and Anke Hinney

Assessing the diagnostic accuracy of the identification of hyperkinetic disorders following the introduction of government guidelines in England

Previous studies have suggested that both underdiagnosis and overdiagnosis routinely occur in ADHD and hyperkinesis (hyperkinetic disorders). England has introduced governmental guidelines for these disorders'...

Authors: David M Foreman and Tamsin Ford

Impact of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder on the patient and family: results from a European survey

Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often experience problems with education, interaction with others and emotional disturbances. Families of ADHD children also suffer a significant b...

Authors: David Coghill, Cesar Soutullo, Carlos d'Aubuisson, Ulrich Preuss, Trygve Lindback, Maria Silverberg and Jan Buitelaar

The occurrence and nature of early signs of schizophrenia and psychotic mood disorders among former child and adolescent psychiatric patients followed into adulthood

This investigation was designed to characterize psychotic disorders among patients originally treated as in- and outpatients by child and adolescent psychiatric services and subsequently followed-up into mid-a...

Authors: Ulf Engqvist and Per-Anders Rydelius

Correlates of loneliness among university students

The purpose of this study was to investigate level of loneliness, essential needs during university education, and relationships between loneliness, essential needs, and characteristics of university students....

Authors: Ugur Özdemir and Tarik Tuncay

Conduct disorder in girls: neighborhoods, family characteristics, and parenting behaviors

Little is known about the social context of girls with conduct disorder (CD), a question of increasing importance to clinicians and researchers. The purpose of this study was to examine the associations betwee...

Authors: Kathleen Pajer, Stefanie Stein, Karin Tritt, Chien-Ni Chang, Wei Wang and William Gardner

Prevalence and determinants of child maltreatment among high school students in Southern China: A large scale school based survey

Child maltreatment can cause significant physical and psychological problems. The present study aimed to investigate the prevalence and determinants of child maltreatment in Guangzhou, China, where such issues...

Authors: Phil WS Leung, William CW Wong, WQ Chen and Catherine SK Tang

A three-country comparison of psychotropic medication prevalence in youth

The study aims to compare cross-national prevalence of psychotropic medication use in youth.

Authors: Julie M Zito, Daniel J Safer, Lolkje TW de Jong-van den Berg, Katrin Janhsen, Joerg M Fegert, James F Gardner, Gerd Glaeske and Satish C Valluri

Acute atomoxetine treatment of younger and older children with ADHD: A meta-analysis of tolerability and efficacy

Atomoxetine is FDA-approved as a treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in patients aged 6 years to adult. Among pediatric clinical trials of atomoxetine to date, six with a randomized, d...

Authors: Christopher J Kratochvil, Denái R Milton, Brigette S Vaughan and Laurence L Greenhill

Off-label psychopharmacologic prescribing for children: History supports close clinical monitoring

The review presents pediatric adverse drug events from a historical perspective and focuses on selected safety issues associated with off-label use of medications for the psychiatric treatment of youth. Clinic...

Authors: Julie M Zito, Albert T Derivan, Christopher J Kratochvil, Daniel J Safer, Joerg M Fegert and Laurence L Greenhill

Chinese translation of strengths and difficulties questionnaire requires urgent review before field trials for validity and reliability

Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a brief behavioural screening questionnaire for children and teenagers aged 3 to 16 years. It is available in 66 languages, and gaining more popularity world w...

Authors: Teck-Hock Toh, Sing-Jill Chow, Tzer-Hwu Ting and Jill Sewell

Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health – development of a new open-access journal

Authors: Joerg M Fegert and Benedetto Vitiello

The Collaborative Lithium Trials (CoLT): specific aims, methods, and implementation

Lithium is a benchmark treatment for bipolar illness in adults. However, there has been relatively little methodologically stringent research regarding the use of lithium in youth suffering from bipolarity.

Authors: Robert L Findling, Jean A Frazier, Vivian Kafantaris, Robert Kowatch, Jon McClellan, Mani Pavuluri, Linmarie Sikich, Stefanie Hlastala, Stephen R Hooper, Christine A Demeter, Denise Bedoya, Bernard Brownstein and Perdita Taylor-Zapata

The effectiveness of self help technologies for emotional problems in adolescents: a systematic review

Adolescence is a transition period that involves physiological, psychological, and social changes. Emotional problems such as symptoms of anxiety and depression may develop due to these changes. Although many ...

Authors: Muna Ahmead and Peter Bower

Long-term outcome and prognosis of dissociative disorder with onset in childhood or adolescence

In the majority of cases short-term treatment outcome of juvenile dissociative disorder is rather favourable. In contrast, the long-term course seems to be less positive, but meaningful results are still fragm...

Authors: Thomas Jans, Stefanie Schneck-Seif, Tobias Weigand, Wolfgang Schneider, Heiner Ellgring, Christoph Wewetzer and Andreas Warnke

Effects of school-based interventions on mental health stigmatization: a systematic review

Stigmatizing, or discriminatory, perspectives and behaviour, which target individuals on the basis of their mental health, are observed in even the youngest school children. We conducted a systematic review of...

Authors: Howard M Schachter, Alberta Girardi, Mylan Ly, Denise Lacroix, Andrew B Lumb, Judith van Berkom and Ritu Gill

Frequency, stability and differentiation of self-reported school fear and truancy in a community sample

Surprisingly little is known about the frequency, stability, and correlates of school fear and truancy based on self-reported data of adolescents.

Authors: Hans-Christoph Steinhausen, Nora Müller and Christa Winkler Metzke

Cognitive and affective perspective-taking in conduct-disordered children high and low on callous-unemotional traits

Deficits in cognitive and/or affective perspective-taking have been implicated in Conduct-Disorder (CD), but empirical investigations produced equivocal results. Two factors may be implicated: (a) distinct def...

Authors: Xenia Anastassiou-Hadjicharalambous and David Warden

ADHD characteristics: I. Concurrent co-morbidity patterns in children & adolescents

342 Caucasian subjects with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were recruited from pediatric and behavioral health clinics for a genetic study. Concurrent comorbidity was assessed to characterize ...

Authors: Josephine Elia, Paul Ambrosini and Wade Berrettini

Implementing the semi-structured interview Kiddie-SADS-PL into an in-patient adolescent clinical setting: impact on frequency of diagnoses

Research is needed to establish the utility of diagnostic interviews in clinical settings. Studies comparing clinical diagnoses with diagnoses generated with structured instruments show generally low or modera...

Authors: Bertrand Lauth, Sigurður Rafn A Levy, Guðlaug Júlíusdóttir, Pierre Ferrari and Hannes Pétursson

Association of nail biting and psychiatric disorders in children and their parents in a psychiatrically referred sample of children

Nail biting (NB) is a very common unwanted behavior. The majority of children are motivated to stop NB and have already tried to stop it, but are generally unsuccessful in doing so. It is a difficult behavior ...

Authors: Ahmad Ghanizadeh

Psychopathological status, behavior problems, and family adjustment of Kuwaiti children whose fathers were involved in the first gulf war

Following the end of the Gulf War that resulted in the liberation of Kuwait, there are no reports on the impact of veterans' traumatic exposure and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on their children. We co...

Authors: Fawziyah A Al-Turkait and Jude U Ohaeri

Emotional well-being in children and adolescents treated with atomoxetine for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: Findings from a patient, parent and physician perspective using items from the pediatric adverse event rating scale (PAERS)

The objective of this analysis was to measure changes in items on the Pediatric Adverse Event Rating Scale (PAERS) that relate to emotional well-being of children and adolescents with Attention-Deficit/Hyperac...

Authors: Peter M Wehmeier, Alexander Schacht, Martin Lehmann, Ralf W Dittmann, Susan G Silva and John S March

Global impression of perceived difficulties in children and adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: Reliability and validity of a new instrument assessing perceived difficulties from a patient, parent and physician perspective over the day

The objective of this analysis was to evaluate the psychometric properties of a brief scale developed to assess the degree of difficulties in children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The ...

Authors: Peter M Wehmeier, Alexander Schacht, Ralf W Dittmann and Manfred Döpfner

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in children after paediatric intensive care treatment compared to children who survived a major fire disaster

The goals were to determine the presence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in children after paediatric intensive care treatment, to identify risk factors for PTSD, and to compare this data with data fro...

Authors: Madelon B Bronner, Hendrika Knoester, Albert P Bos, Bob F Last and Martha A Grootenhuis

The validity, reliability and normative scores of the parent, teacher and self report versions of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire in China

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) has become one of the most widely used measurement tools in child and adolescent mental health work across the globe. The SDQ was originally developed and val...

Authors: Yasong Du, Jianhua Kou and David Coghill

Resilience and vulnerability among refugee children of traumatized and non-traumatized parents

The aim of the study was to explore resilience among refugee children whose parents had been traumatized and were suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Authors: Atia Daud, Britt af Klinteberg and Per-Anders Rydelius

The psychopathological and psychosocial outcome of early-onset schizophrenia: Preliminary data of a 13-year follow-up

Relatively little is known about the long-term psychopathological and psychosocial outcome of early-onset schizophrenia. The existing literature describes more severe courses of illness in these patients compa...

Authors: Andreas Reichert, Susanne Kreiker, Claudia Mehler-Wex and Andreas Warnke