Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry · May 2021
Editorial CommentEditors' Note and Special Communication: Research Priorities in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Emerging From the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Over the last year, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in profound disruptions across the globe, with school closures, social isolation, job loss, illness, and death affecting the lives of children and families in myriad ways. In an Editors' Note in our June 2020 issue,1 our senior editorial team described this Journal's role in advancing knowledge in child and adolescent mental health during the pandemic and outlined areas we identified as important for science and practice in our field. Since then, the Journal has published articles on the impacts of the pandemic on child and adolescent mental health and service systems,2-5 which are available in a special collection accessible through the Journal's website.6 Alongside many opinion papers, the pace of publication of empirical research in this area is rapidly expanding, covering important issues such as increased frequency of mental health symptoms among children and adolescents3,5,7-10 and changes in patterns of clinical service use such as emergency department visits.11-14 As the Senior Editors prepared that Editors' Note, they were acutely aware that the priorities that they identified were broad and generated by only a small group of scientists and clinicians. ⋯ However, a more detailed assessment of research priorities related to child and adolescent mental health was beyond the scope of that paper. Furthermore, the publication of that position paper preceded the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police on May 25, 2020, which re-energized efforts to acknowledge and to address racism and healthcare disparities in the United States and many other countries. To build upon the JAACAP Editors' Note1 and the work of Holmes et al.,15 we conducted an international survey of professionals-practitioners and researchers-working on child and adolescent development and pediatric mental health to identify concerns about the impact of the pandemic on children, adolescents, and their families, as well as what is helping families navigate these impacts, and the specific research topics that are of greatest importance.
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J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry · Mar 2019
Editorial Case ReportsTeens Who Can't Sleep: Insomnia or Circadian Rhythm Disorder?
Maggie is a 16-year-old girl who came to see me because she wanted help with her longstanding difficulties falling asleep at night and waking up in the morning. She goes to bed between midnight and 3 am and usually lies awake worrying until falling asleep at 3 to 4 am. She often video-calls or texts her boyfriend before sleep. ⋯ Her psychiatric history includes a diagnosis of anxiety and depression, both in remission, treated with fluoxetine 30 mg daily for several years. Difficulties falling asleep and waking in the morning are common complaints among adolescents and young adults. Before my additional year of training in sleep medicine, I would have misdiagnosed Maggie as having insomnia rather than delayed sleep phase disorder (DSPD), a circadian rhythm disorder.
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J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry · Jan 2019
Development and Psychometric Evaluation of the Children's Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale Second Edition.
To develop and examine the psychometric properties of the Children's Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale Second Edition (CY-BOCS-II) in children and adolescents with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). ⋯ Initial findings support the CY-BOCS-II as a reliable and valid measure of obsessive-compulsive symptoms in youth.
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We thank Dr. Shaligram, author of this Letter to the Editor, for the interest in our recent article reporting time-dependent effects of prenatal exposure to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) on behavioral, emotional, and social development in offspring at age 5 years.1 Dr. Shaligram raises interesting points of consideration for interpretation of the study results, and poses methodological questions about our window of exposure classification.2.
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J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry · Sep 2018
Comment LetterEffect of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor Use in Pregnancy on Emotional Health of Children.
I read with interest the article by Lupattelli et al., "Effect of Time-Dependent Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor Antidepressants During Pregnancy on Behavioral, Emotional, and Social Development in Preschool-Aged Children,"1 which describes the effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) use in pregnancy on mental health in offspring, in the March issue of the Journal. The investigators found that SSRI use in late pregnancy resulted in greater risk for anxious/depressed behaviors in children by 5 years of age compared with unexposed children.