Child psychiatric epidemiology: current status and future prospects
Offord, D.R.
Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. Revue Canadienne de Psychiatrie 40(6): 284-288
1995
ISSN/ISBN: 0706-7437 PMID: 7585396 Document Number: 453601
The purpose of this paper is to present selected findings from child psychiatric epidemiology in areas of prevalence and correlates, and discuss issues in interpreting these data and their relevance. Selected references were used. Prevalence rates of 1 or more child psychiatric disorders in nonclinical community samples of children and adolescents vary between 17.6% and 22%. Issues in interpreting these data include: the boundary between normal and abnormal, boundary between disorders, disagreement among informants, and problems with instrumentation. Knowledge about the correlates of child psychiatric disorders is quite extensive, but information on causal factors is relatively sparse. Findings in child psychiatric epidemiology are relevant to clinicians, and future emphasis in the field will be on prospective studies with multiple waves of data from different domains including the child, the family, the school, and the wider community.