Children and Mental Health

Shelters should follow all regulations for safeguarding mental health and substance abuse information collected from their residents. Youths and caregivers may fear that disclosure of information about the use of substances or mental health conditions will result in losing their shelter bed and reducing their choices for services. Shelters should provide information to help residents better evaluate the risk of participating in a screening, but they need to respect residents’ right to refuse to participate in the process. Mental illness and substance abuse often are poorly understood and stigmatized conditions. The process of identifying these problems can be put into a strengths-based, family-friendly context by providing a positive definition of social and emotional health for very young children and mental health for older children and adolescents. In addition, shelter staff can communicate the fact that many children and adolescents experience such problems and explain that helpful treatments are available. Focusing on a child’s or adolescent’s difficulties in coping with homelessness rather than on behavioral problems likely will motivate a parent or guardian to consent to and collaborate in the identification process. Information on children’s and adolescents’ mental health, substance use, and screening results needs to be communicated respectfully, conveyed with understanding of the culture of the youths and their families, and spoken in the caregivers’ and youths’ language when necessary.

This dissertation consists of three independent but related research articles dealing with religiosity, mental health, and children. The first uses the General Social Survey to perform the first large-N, non-convenience- sample analysis of the relationship between belief in God and sense of purpose. Using logistic regression analysis I find that there is a positive association, expanding our knowledge of the association between religious frameworks on a particular facet of mental health. The second article uses OLS to test the relationship between belief in God and fertility intentions in the Czech Republic and Slovenia using the European Fertility and Family Survey, once again finding positive relationships between belief in God or belief in a higher power and fertility intentions. This finding is theoretically important because the prior literature has tended to invoke directly institutional mechanisms in the fertility/religion relationship without considering the possibility that more individuated forms of religiosity may have independent associations. Finally, the third article uses the General Social Survey (and, once again, OLS) to test the role of religiosity as a moderator in the relationship between number of children and happiness. The literature on children and happiness has progressed beyond simple associations, but the literature incorporating concrete social moderators is still in its infancy, and especially social moderators whose influences are vectored through ideational, and not necessarily material, associations. I make the theoretical argument that, as religiosity in the United States tends to be associated with pronatalist norms and culture, and as happiness is positively

The status of physical and mental health of children in relation to exposure to tobacco smoke was examined in the representative group of 1,478 school children. The methods used, included anonymous questionnaires filled in by parents, Columbia Impairment Scale (CIS), Behavior Problem Index (BPI) and anthropometry. The prevalence of passive smoking is the highest in the capital (27%) and southern cities. Significant relationships have been confirmed between ETS and the age, socio-economic status, the incompleteness of the family, the level of mother's education and the significantly higher prevalence of respiratory diseases (26.7%).The relationships of ETS with emotional (CIS scores ≥16) and behavioral functions (BPI score ≥14) were significant in children exposed to mother‘s and father‘s smoking at home. In the multivariate analysis this association was not significant; the factors such as income and completeness of the family were dominant. The results confirmed the impact of ETS and social factors on health state and health behavior and could be the argumentation for legislative changes.

Wolf and Hugo Dunlap Smith CHILDREN: Summary of Round Table Discussion. THE ROLE OF THE PEDIATRICIAN IN THE MENTAL HEALTH OF[r]

hyperactivity disorder among the students. Parents also were required to answer the Conner’s form to identify whether their children have any disorders. This questionnaire consisting of 27 questions was applied to diagnose attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder. The participants were asked to rate each item with a score from 0 to 3, the total scores of each questionnaire was then added and divided by the number of items. Moreover, mothers filled out and completed the general mental health questionnaires. The cut-off point in this questionnaire for this type of disorder is 1.5 and after confirmation of this condition for a child, a clinical interview was conducted with his/her parents to diagnose the disorder. The age range of 3 to 17 was set using Conners measurement. Internal correlation coefficients of durability with amplitude of 75% to 90% and Test-retest correlation coefficient with 8 distances of 60% to 90% has been reported [36] . This questionnaire has justifiability content validity and the translation copy of Tehranidoost and Zargarinezhad has been used

population that is already experiencing high rates of mental health risks. These children are displaced from their homes, separated from their support systems, and left to navigate a foreign country, largely on their own. Their stressful life events leave them vulnerable to mental health concerns. Risk factors such as sex, country of origin, exposure to violence, and lack of support within the host country seem to be predictive of posttraumatic, depressive, and anxiety symptoms. Due to their vulnerable position, there is a high prevalence of psychiatric disorders among newly-arrived unaccompanied refugee children. These symptoms vary depending on time in country and the resiliency of the individual child. The symptoms may be persistent even after resettlement. Social support after resettlement, however, seems to help reduce or eliminate emotional or behavioral problems beyond the rates expected in a typical population. In terms of treatment, the TF-CBT method was determined feasible in reducing the symptoms of trauma. Other therapy techniques focusing on self-healing were also found to be effective treatments.

challenges in getting access to mental health support. The report states that child and adolescent mental health services are turning away young people in care because they have not met diagnostic thresholds for treatment or because the children are without a stable placement. The Committee said that this is contrary to statutory guidance - Promoting the health and well-being of looked-after children ( March 2015) - which states that looked-after children should never be refused a service on the grounds of their placement being short-term or unplanned. The report recommended that looked-after children are given priority access to mental health assessments by specialist practitioners, with subsequent treatment based on clinical need.

This article is based on a Social Care Institute for Excellence research briefing: Ethnic Minority Parents with Mental Health Problems and their Children. Scie research briefings provide a concise summary of the research knowledge in a particular topic and signpost routes to further information. They do not provide a definitive statement of all evidence on a particular issue. Scie will be updating the information in this briefing with more detailed research in the area of parental mental health, including ethnic minority parents, in the future.

The present research had five anticipated limitations. First, participants’ self-report of their use of technology and their knowledge and professional experience when working with children diagnosed with ASD could be a limitation. According to Creswell (2014), self-report by participants are prone to response biases, such as responding in a way that is socially desirable or makes participants appear good. The second limitation involved participants’ comfort level while wearing the Oculus Rift HMD as found in Ehrlich and Munger’s (2012) study. The third limitation was the reliability and validity of the Temple Presence Inventory (TPI). The TPI has been used and tested in a gaming and media environment with college students without a diagnosis of ASD (Lombard, Weinstein, & Ditton, 2011); however, the present research was focused on a different participant population, mental health practitioners viewing a VRTE and the Oculus Rift. The fourth limitation involved the internal consistency and reliability of the TPI subscales. Lombard et al. (2011) used all eight TPI’s subscales; however, for the purpose of the present study only four subscales (i.e., spatial presence, social presence-actor within medium [i.e., parasocial interaction], engagement [i.e., mental immersion], and social realism) were used. The fifth limitation involved the researcher’s design of the VRTE. While the validity of the VRTE was assessed in the pilot study, the VRTE has not been used in prior studies. A last limitation was that in the pilot study no significant findings were found; however, participants’ mean ratings at the second part of the pilot study were higher.

The models are estimated using a separate analysis for each scale. Table 2 shows the results from the variables of interest (i.e. maternal health variables, socioeconomic determinants and household characteristics) of the models. The results show that the determinants of the five conditions are not completely identical. A mother’s depression negatively affects emotional symptoms (OR = 1.20, 95% IC = [0.92–1.57]) and behavioural problems (OR = 1.25, 95% IC = [0.99–1.59]) of the child, but re- duces antisocial behaviour (OR = 0.63, 95% IC = [0.39– 1.04]). The risk of the child suffering mental health dis- orders increases when the mental health index of the mother is higher (which indicates poorer mental health), again with the exception of antisocial behaviour. In terms of smoking behaviour, results show that occasion- ally smoking reduces the risk of hyperactivity, smoking in the past reduces behavioural problems, hyperactivity or emotional problems, and mothers who are non- smokers reduce the probability of children experiencing emotional symptoms, having behavioural problems, be- ing hyperactive or having peer problems in all cases when compared to mothers who are regular smokers. Overweight or obese mothers (using the BMI) lead to a significant reduction in the risk of the child of having behavioural problems or being hyperactive when com- pared to under- and normal-weight mothers. In terms of socioeconomic status, foreign nationality increases the risk of having peer problems by 70% (OR = 1.70, 95% IC = [1.25–2.32]) but, on the other hand, reduces the risk of being hyperactive or having behavioural problems (in the latter case, being Spanish or having foreign national- ity have the same significant association). Furthermore, the social class of the family shows that lower socioeco- nomic status significantly increases the risk of the child being hyperactive, having behavioural problems, or exhi- biting antisocial behaviour (apart from class III com- pared to class I-II where the risk of the child suffering from peer problems is improved). On the other hand, children whose mothers have a high level of education, compared to children with uneducated mothers, are less at risk from suffering from hyperactivity, emotional diffi- culties, behavioural problems, or conflicts with peers. The risk of the child suffering from hyperactivity, behav- ioural problems or exhibiting negative emotional symp- toms is significantly reduced when the mother is a

Introduction: Research findings suggest that the adjustment of a family is influenced by a mentally- disabled child. Therefore, the current study aimed at investigating the relationship between familial performance, child characteristics, demographic variables and stress and mental health among parents of children with mental disabilities. Method: 200 parents (130 mothers and 70 fathers) were studied; they completed the “parenting stress index”, “General Health Questionnaire”, “FAD-I” and demographic questionnaires for parents and children. Data were analyzed using multi-vitiate Analysis of Variance, correlation and regression analysis.

278-78-0038 (DB): A Study of the Role of Pediatricians in the Delivery of Mental Health Services to Children, submitted to National Institute of Mental Health, by Department of Pediatric[r]

Kessler et al7 reported a reduction of 8% in nonpsychiatric use among 288 children receiving mental health treatment but did not use a comparison group, and the posttreatment period was [r]

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been challenging for US uni- formed service families and their children. Almost 60% of US service members have family responsibilities. Approximately 2.3 million active duty, National Guard, and Reserve service members have been deployed since the beginning of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (2001 and 2003, respectively), and almost half have deployed more than once, some for up to 18 months ’ duration. Up to 2 million US children have been exposed to a wartime deployment of a loved one in the past 10 years. Many service members have returned from combat deployments with symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and traumatic brain injury. The mental health and well-being of spouses, signi fi cant others, children (and their friends), and extended family members of deployed service members continues to be signi fi cantly challenged by the experiences of wartime deployment as well as by combat mortality and morbidity. The medical system of the Department of Defense provides health and mental health services for active duty service members and their families as well as activated National Guard and Reserve service members and their families. In addition to military pediatricians and civilian pediatricians employed by military treatment facilities, nonmilitary general pediatricians care for > 50% of children and family members before, during, and after wartime deployments. This clinical report is for all pediatricians, both active duty and civilian, to aid in caring for children whose loved ones have been, are, or will be deployed. Pediatrics 2013;131:e2002 – e2015

Based on analysis of NHS datasets for the financial year 2017-18 the Commissioner’s report found that of those children referred to CAMHS, 31% received treatment within the year and 32% were still on waiting lists at the end of the year. Another 37% were not accepted into treatment or discharged after an assessment appointment. The report stated that this may be because they did not have a level of need which justified a clinical intervention, but it could also be because the local CAMHS service did not have the capacity to treat all the children who needed help. The report stated that the numbers of children not accepted into CAMHS varied considerably across the country from 7% of referrals to more than 80%. The Commissioner called for better lower level mental health services including an NHS funded counsellor in every school.

Children in US military families share common experiences and unique challenges, including parental deployment and frequent relocation. Although some of the stressors of military life have been associated with higher rates of mental health disorders and increased health care use among family members, there are various factors and interventions that have been found to promote resilience. Military children often live on or near military installations, where they may attend Department of Defense – sponsored child care programs and schools and receive medical care through military treatment facilities. However, many families live in remote communities without access to these services. Because of this wide geographic distribution, military children are cared for in both military and civilian medical practices. This clinical report provides a background to military culture and offers practical guidance to assist civilian and military pediatricians caring for military children.

In this analysis of nationally representative data examining outpatient mental health care use among children and youth, we found that 5.2% had a visit in the past year for a mental health condition. We also found that PCPs have a substantial role in pediatric mental health care: 35% of children (42% of children with ADHD) saw only a PCP, and PCPs were involved in the care of nearly half of the children. PCPs and psychiatrists comanaged the conditions of only 6.7% of our sample. PCPs saw more children with ADHD than did psychiatrists or psychologists/social workers but fewer children with anxiety/mood disorders. Children seeing a PCP for ADHD received medications more often than those seeing psychiatrists. Finally, we found that few consistent associations exist between provider type or

None of these increases necessarily mean that children now have worse mental health than they did before. Diagnosis and treatment rates can reflect changes in help- seeking behaviour, access to mental health professionals, and diagnostic criteria and practice. Parents’ perceptions, and their resulting responses, can be shaped by changes in awareness, knowledge, stigma, and understanding of what constitutes mental disorder (Rüsch et al., 2017). And while low wellbeing and dissatisfaction indicators are closely associated with mental health, they are not the same as mental disorder (Weich et al., 2012). Any approach to the assessment of mental health or wellbeing is subject to the strengths and limitations of the classification system used (Clark et al., 2017).

health services. The Department believes that the ambitions set out in the Forward View and the Green Paper will help deliver a step-change in improvement in support to children and young people. The latter introduces a new approach in schools, including the creation of new mental health support teams. However, the balance between pace, funding and need to test approaches means that the Green Paper will only be rolled out to 20–25% of the country by 2023 (paragraphs 1.10, 1.12, 1.16 and 2.23, and Figure 4). 7 The government has not set out and costed what it must do to achieve Future in Mind in full. Future in Mind identified 49 proposals on themes such as resilience and early intervention, access and workforce development. However, the current programmes to take this forward will not deliver its proposals in full. Our analysis highlighted that the programmes do not have explicit objectives for some proposals, particularly those related to vulnerable groups. The government has not yet identified what actions and budget it will need to implement each proposal in Future in Mind, what progress it has made so far, and what further work is required to deliver it in full (paragraphs 1.11 to 1.13 and 2.2, Figures 4 and 5).

All the constructs in this section, with the exception of ‘safety’, relate to aspects of social capital. Participation, social networks, social support and trust are central to the concept of social capital – the networks and norms of connection and reciprocity – which is understood to influence mental health either directly, or as a potential mediator of risk factors e.g. deprivation. It should be noted that the literature covering children and community appears to be relatively sparse. A systematic review on social capital and mental illness concluded that while there is strong support for an association at the individual level for adults, there is less evidence in relation to childhood and ecological studies (De Silva et al., 2005). Indeed, most studies have examined social capital relationships among adults (Whiting and Harper, 2003; Goodwin and Armstrong-Esther, 2004; Leonard, 2005). Those investigating the relationship among children have concentrated on structural dimensions of the neighbourhood (indices of deprivation, immigrant concentration, residential stability) and other neighbourhood-level socio-economic variables and/or measures of social control or social cohesion (see references cited in Meltzer, 2008). There is, however, a growing body of evidence which is trying to determine what social capital might look like for children and young people, especially as in terms of measurement, problems arise because some of what is assessed is not appropriate to the lives of young people.