The epidemiology of child psychiatric disorders is the study of the incidence,

prevalence In epidemiology, prevalence is the proportion of a particular population found to be affected by a medical condition (typically a disease or a risk factor such as smoking or seatbelt use) at a specific time. It is derived by comparing the number o ...

, and distribution of conditions in

child and adolescent psychiatry Child and adolescent psychiatry (or pediatric psychiatry) is a branch of psychiatry that focuses on the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental disorders in children, adolescents, and their families. It investigates the biopsychosocial fac ...

. Subfields of pediatric psychiatric epidemiology include developmental epidemiology, which focuses on the genetic and environmental causes of child psychiatric disorders. The field of pediatric psychiatric epidemiology finds widely varying rates of childhood psychiatric disorders, depending on study population, diagnostic method, and cultural setting.

Prevalence of mental illness

A 2016 study conducted in the United States found that 17.4% of children between the ages of 2 and 8 have a mental, behavioral, or mental health disorder.

Epidemiological Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population. It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evidenc ...

research conducted in 2005 has shown that between 3% and 18% of children have a

psychiatric Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psychiatry. Initial psychi ...

disorder causing significant functional impairment (reasons for these widely divergent

rates are discussed below) and a median prevalence estimate of 12% has been proposed. Using a different statistical method, a proposed prevalence rate for all mental disorders in children was 14.2%.

England

Between 2005 and 2017, the number of adolescents (12 to 17 years) who were prescribed antidepressants has doubled. On the other hand, antidepressant prescriptions for children aged 5-11 decreased between 1999 and 2017. From April 2015, prescription increased for both age groups (for people aged 0 to 17) and peaked during the first COVID lockdown in March 2020. Between 1998 and 2017, children and adolescents living in deprived areas were more often prescribed antidepressants while

Black, Asian and minority ethnic A number of different systems of classification of ethnicity in the United Kingdom exist. These schemata have been the subject of debate, including about the nature of ethnicity, how or whether it can be categorised, and the relationship betwe ...

(BAME) teenagers were less likely to receive prescriptions than their

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...

peers.

Developmental epidemiology

Developmental epidemiology seeks to "disentangle how the trajectories of symptoms, environment, and individual development intertwine to produce

psychopathology Psychopathology is the study of abnormal cognition, behaviour, and experiences which differs according to social norms and rests upon a number of constructs that are deemed to be the social norm at any particular era. Biological psychopatholo ...

Socio-economic influences

Mental illness in childhood and adolescence is associated with parental unemployment, low family income, being on family income assistance, lower parental educational level, and single-parent, blended or stepparent families.

Methodological issues

Epidemiological research has produced widely divergent estimates, depending on the nature of the diagnostic method (e.g. structured clinical interview, unstructured clinical interview, self-report or parent-report questionnaire), but more recent studies using

DSM-IV The ''Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders'' (DSM; latest edition: DSM-5-TR, published in March 2022) is a publication by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) for the classification of mental disorders using a common langua ...

-based structured interviews produce more reliable estimates of clinical "caseness". Past research has also been limited by inconsistent definitions of clinical disorders, and differing upper and lower age limits of the study population. Changing definitions over time have given rise to spurious evidence of changing prevalence of disorders. Furthermore, almost all epidemiological surveys have been carried out in Europe, North America and Australia, and the cross-cultural validity of DSM criteria have been questioned, so it is not clear to what extent the published data can be generalized to developing countries.

Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Epidemiology Of Child Psychiatric Disorders Child and adolescent psychiatry