Articles

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

Understanding the agreements and controversies surrounding childhood psychopharmacology

The number of children in the US taking prescription drugs for emotional and behavioral disturbances is growing dramatically. This growth in the use of psychotropic drugs in pediatric populations has given ris...

Authors: Erik Parens and Josephine Johnston

Inhibition, flexibility, working memory and planning in autism spectrum disorders with and without comorbid ADHD-symptoms

Recent studies have not paid a great deal of attention to comorbid attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms in autistic children even though it is well known that almost half of children with a...

Authors: Judith Sinzig, Dagmar Morsch, Nicole Bruning, Martin H Schmidt and Gerd Lehmkuhl

The effects of cognitive-behavioural therapy on mood-related ruminative response style in depressed adolescents

A mood-related ruminative response style increases the risk of onset and persistence of depression. This preliminary study investigated whether, in depressed adolescents, cognitive-behaviour therapy reduces mo...

Authors: Paul O Wilkinson and Ian M Goodyer

Prevalence of mental disorders among adolescents in German youth welfare institutions

Multiple psycho-social risk factors are common in children and adolescents in youth welfare, especially in residential care. In this survey study we assessed the prevalence of behavioral, emotional symptoms an...

Authors: Marc Schmid, Lutz Goldbeck, Jakob Nuetzel and Joerg M Fegert

The NICE ADHD health technology assessment: A review and critique

Health technology assessments (HTAs) by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) enjoy high levels of international attention. The present analysis addresses NICE's appraisal of methylp...

Authors: Michael Schlander

Prediction of posttraumatic stress in fathers of children with chronic diseases or unintentional injuries: a six-months follow-up study

While fathers were neglected for a long time in research investigating families of pediatric patients, there are now a few studies available on fathers' posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and posttraumatic s...

Authors: Karin Ribi, Margarete E Vollrath, Felix H Sennhauser, Hanspeter E Gnehm and Markus A Landolt

Prevalence and correlates of truancy among adolescents in Swaziland: findings from the Global School-Based Health Survey

Educational attainment is an important determinant of diverse health outcomes. Truancy among adolescents jeopardizes chances of achieving their educational goals. Truant behaviors are also associated with vari...

Authors: Seter Siziya, Adamson S Muula and Emmanuel Rudatsikira

Psychosocial predictors of sexual initiation and high-risk sexual behaviors in early adolescence

This longitudinal study examined psychosocial factors associated with risky sexual behavior in early adolescence.

Authors: Argyro Caminis, Christopher Henrich, Vladislav Ruchkin, Mary Schwab-Stone and Andrés Martin

Impact of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) on prescription dug spending for children and adolescents: increasing relevance of health economic evidence

During the last decade, pharmaceutical spending for patients with attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been escalating internationally.

Authors: Michael Schlander

Continuity, psychosocial correlates, and outcome of problematic substance use from adolescence to young adulthood in a community sample

The study of the continuity, psychosocial correlates, and prediction of problematic substance use (PSU) across time from adolescence to young adulthood.

Authors: Hans-Christoph Steinhausen, Susanne Eschmann and Christa Winkler Metzke

Baseline values from the electrocardiograms of children and adolescents with ADHD

An important issue in pediatric pharmacology is the determination of whether medications affect cardiac rhythm parameters, in particular the QT interval, which is a surrogate marker for the risk of adverse car...

Authors: Suyash Prasad, Amanda J Furr, Shuyu Zhang, Susan Ball and Albert J Allen

A pilot study for augmenting atomoxetine with methylphenidate: safety of concomitant therapy in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

This study examined augmenting atomoxetine with extended-release methylphenidate in children whose attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) previously failed to respond adequately to stimulant medication.

Authors: Gabrielle A Carlson, David Dunn, Douglas Kelsey, Dustin Ruff, Susan Ball, Lisa Ahrbecker and Albert J Allen