Unit 2 Paper – Challenges in Measuring and Identifying Causes of Child Psychiatric Disorders

In this unit we discussed challenges in measuring and identifying causes of psychiatric disorders. These include difficulties in identifying the boundaries and symptoms of psychiatric disorders, which change over time and are difficult to identify in non-treated samples, as well as challenges in measurement of hypothesized causes, such as stressful life events. The framing of research agendas against a background of historically ignoring, oppressing, and criminalizing mental health conditions by race, class, and gender across the world makes psychiatric epidemiology as a discipline a challenging field for the broader goal of improving the public’s health.  Write an essay in which you choose one aspects of psychiatric disorder causation, discuss the historical challenges that the field has faced, and reflect on strategies that have been proposed to overcome these challenges.  Write your essay on the topic below, and use the supplementary readings provided for the topic, as well as other references as necessary.

1) Most psychiatric disorders are rooted in childhood, making it a sensitive period for the development of behavior and emotional patterns as well as a potential place to intervene to prevent onset and persistence of psychiatric symptoms. Yet diagnosing and measuring psychiatric disorders is a challenge. The field has grappled with whether to measure symptoms based on child, teacher, or parent report, and whether the decision should differ by type of diagnosis, age of the child, and other factors. What is the current state of the literature on how to measure child psychiatric disorders, and what information does the field need to move forward?

• Jane Costello, E., Egger, H., & Angold, A. (2005). 10-Year Research Update Review: The Epidemiology of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Disorders: I. Methods and Public Health Burden. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 44(10), 972-984
• Jane Costello, E., Foley, D. L., & Angold, A. (2005). 10-Year Researdevelopmental ch Update Review: The Epidemiology of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Disorders: II. Developmental Epidemiology Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 45(1), 8-25
• Merikangas, K. R., Nakamura, E. F., & Kessler, R. C. (2009). Epidemiology of mental disorders in children and adolescents. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 11(1), 7-20
• Smith SR. Making sense of multiple informants in child and adolescent psychopathology: a guide for clinicians. J Psychoeduc Assess. 2007;25(2):139–149.