child and adolescent

Birth – 18 years.

Our child and adolescent Blogs

New evidence on antidepressants and suicide risk in children and young people

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Major depressive disorder (MDD) is unfortunately a relatively common condition in children and adolescents.  Depression is estimated to affect 2% of pre-pubertal children and 5-8% of adolescents (Son et al, 2000). As you might expect, depression has a significant negative impact on the development, functioning and risk for suicide in individuals affected, as well as [read the full story…]

Could measuring cortisol levels become a biological test for risk of depression in adolescent males?

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Is it possible to work out which of two adolescents sitting before you complaining of unhappiness, which one will go home and sleep it off and which will go on to develop an episode of major depression? Has the biological revolution in psychiatry finally come to fruition with a useful biomarker for making treatment decisions? [read the full story…]

Trial found similar outcomes with total and partial caries removal in primary molars

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The aim of this study was to compare 24-month pulp health outcomes of partial caries removal (PCR) and total caries removal (TCR) with composite restoration in primary molars. Children (3–8 years), in good general health and amenable to treatment, with at least one molar with acute, deep carious lesion into dentine were included. The teeth [read the full story…]

Only phonics instruction is proven effective for treating reading disability, says systematic review

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Reading instruction was once a topic guaranteed to ignite passionate debate among teachers, mostly between proponents of phonics instruction and supporters of whole-language approaches. Although this particular controversy has become less heated in recent years, with many endorsing a hybrid or mixed-methods approach, there remains a great deal of interest in the relative merits of [read the full story…]

Moving to better neighbourhoods: bad for boys, good for girls?

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The link between external influences such as family and neighbourhood experiences and young people’s mental health outcomes has been extensively commented on in the literature. While it is more common for studies to focus on the individual or family level, looking at things from a wider perspective is interesting especially from a public mental health [read the full story…]

Study suggests that a risk based non-operative caries treatment and prevention approach may be more cost effective than traditional approaches

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Sadly caries remains a significant public health problem across the world, particularly in children. The aim of this study was to assess the cost-effectiveness of caries treatment and prevention strategies in the Netherlands. The study was conducted alongside a randomised controlled trial (RCT) evaluating the effects of two caries prevention strategies compared with regular dental [read the full story…]

Longer adolescent duration of worry and low mood predicts problems in adulthood: suggests early intervention important

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Lucy Maddox
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Adolescent mental health problems are the cause of deep distress to hundreds of thousands of teenagers in the UK. Young Minds estimates that 850,000 children and young people in the UK have a diagnosed mental health problem, and many more may be suffering in silence.  Statistics on how likely it is that an adolescent with [read the full story…]

New Cochrane Protocol – April 2014

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  The aim of this new Cochrane protocol is to evaluate the effects of methods for acceptance of local anaesthetic in children during dental treatment. As the protocol notes three factors have been considered to influence discomfort during delivery of local anaesthetic: factors related to the patient, equipment factors and aspects that are under control [read the full story…]

Bereavement during childhood, but not before birth, is associated with an increased risk of psychosis

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Andrew Shepherd
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Psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia, are often conceptualised as arising from a complex interplay of genetic and environmental influences (Tandon 2008). The impact of social influences on the risk of psychotic experience is undeniable. Recent reviews of this topic have called for a focus on maternal wellbeing as a means of primary prevention for mental [read the full story…]

Children with Down syndrome improved developmental quotient scores through responsive teaching in small RCT

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Background There are relatively few randomised controlled trials in interventions to support people with learning disabilities. There are often significant difficulties in design in multi-element real-life interventions, along with a range of ethical issues to consider. The researchers in this Turkish study however were keen to use the methodology to look at responsive teaching for [read the full story…]