Neglectful parents and mental-health problems

Emotional neglect can be defined as 'emotional unresponsiveness, unavailability and neglect characterised by a lack of interaction between parent and child.' It has been linked to children developing more mental-health problems but most research so far has been based on adults' memories of their childhood not how children feel at the time. A team of researchers from the University of Glasgow and the Medical Research Council in Glasgow studied 1,694 children. The children filled out a questionnaire called the Parental Bonding Instrument at 11 to assess their relationship with their parents and then had a computerised psychiatric interview at 15 to assess any mental-health problems. 3% of the children perceived their parents as almost always emotionally neglectful and controlling and this group had more than twice the risk of developing mental-health problems at 15.

Young, Robert, Lennie, Susan and Minnis, Helen - Children’s perceptions of parental emotional

neglect and control and psychopathology Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry
doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2011.02390.x

Childhood epilepsy and mental-health problems

Children with epilepsy are more likely to have mental-health problems. A team of researchers led by Dr Kristin Alfstad from the National Centre for Epilepsy at Oslo University Hospital in Norway, studied information collected from 14,699 parents by the Norwegian Health Services Research Centre. 110 of the children in the survey had epilepsy and they were over twice as likely to have psychiatric symptoms as other children (38% vs 17%). Girls with epilepsy were more likely to have emotional problems while boys were more likely to have hyperactivity, inattention and problems with relationships. Having epilepsy was a much stronger risk factor for developing mental-health problems in boys than in girls.

'Conduct disorder' and juvenile delinquency

12 and 13-year-olds with 'conduct disorder' are much more likely to engage in violent and delinquent behaviour as teenagers. Researchers from the Universite de Montreal studied 4,125 children, following them over a number of years. They found that the 12- and 13-year-olds with conduct disorder who displayed violent behaviour were six times as likely to sell illicit drugs, nine times as likely to join a gang and 11 times as likely to carry a weapon; they were also eight times as likely to be arrested. Children with conduct disorder who weren't violent were also more likely to behave badly being three times as likely to sell illicit drugs, four times as likely to join a gang and three times as likely to mug someone using a weapon.

Do worry guts children walk less?

Pedometers, which count the number of steps people take, are used both as a research method to monitor people's physical activity and a way of motivating people to take more exercise. In the course of their studies researchers have noted a phenomenon called reactivity in which people's activity increases in response to the fact that they are conscious of being monitored. This can be useful if the object of the exercise is to get people to become more active but not so good if the purpose is to measure people's activity as it distorts the results. Getting children to become more active is very important to prevent childhood obesity and researchers from Hong Kong University studied 156 children aged between nine and 12 to look at whether rehearsal - a tendency to constantly chew over upsetting experiences - is linked to increased pedometer reactivity. The researchers' theory was that the upsetting effect of being monitored would lead to a greater increase in activity in the children who were prone to more rehearsal as they would spend more time thinking about the implications of being monitored. In week one of the study this was, indeed, the case but by week three the children who 'rehearsed' more were showing a decrease in activity levels from week one and were taking far less exercise than average for children of their age group. The study showed both that the effects of reactivity were short-lived and that children who are sedentary may be more prone to dwell on things.

Ling, F. C., Masters, R. S. and McManus, A. M. , Rehearsal and pedometer reactivity in children. Journal of Clinical Psychology, n/a. doi: 10.1002/jclp.20745

Autism, IQs and emotion recognition

Problems in recognising emotions have been seen as one of the main symptoms of autism but previous laboratory studies have produced mixed results and have had a number of flaws including a small sample size, participants with a narrow range of IQs and an over concentration on visual tests which ignores the ways in which people perceive emotions. A team of researchers led by Catherine R.G. Jones from the Institute of Education in London studied 156 teenagers comparing their ability to recognise emotions both in faces and in voices. They found 'no evidence of a fundamental emotion recognition deficit' in the teenagers with autism and both groups tended to make the same mistakes. The only emotion the teenagers with autism were worse at detecting was surprise. The most important factor in how well the youngsters did was IQ, with the teenagers with a higher IQ doing better on the tests.

Jones, C. R., Pickles, A., Falcaro, M., Marsden, A. J., Happé, F., Scott, S. K., Sauter, D., Tregay, J., Phillips, R. J., Baird, G., Simonoff, E. and Charman, T. A multimodal approach to emotion recognition ability in autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2010.02328.x

Adoption, institutions and executive function

Previous research has shown that children who have spent at least some part of their life in an institution tend to have problems with executive function - which is defined as a combination of working memory, the ability to inhibit one's behaviour, forward planning and the ability to move from one task to another - and attention. Past research has concentrated on children aged between six and 11 so researchers at the University of Pittsburgh studied 418 children who had been adopted from institutions in Russia where they had been psychologically, but not physically, deprived. 130 of the children were pre-school age while the rest were older. The study found that the older the age the children had been adopted at the worse their executive function was and that those who were adopted after they were 18 months old had worse executive function than those who had been adopted when they were younger. The onset of adolescence was associated with a greater increase in executive function deficits for children adopted after 18 months than for those adopted when they were younger.

Merz, E. C. and McCall, R. B. Parent ratings of executive functioning in children adopted from psychosocially depriving institutions Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2010.02335.x

Parents' death and adolescent suicide risk

Most young people who lose a parent actually adjust remarkably well but a minority go on to develop mental-health problems which are, in turn, known to be a risk factor for suicide, something attempted by 5-8% of adolescents in Western societies. A Danish study - by researchers from the University of Southern Denmark and Odense University Hospital - looked into the links between parental death and suicide in a sample of 72,765 teenagers. They found that young people who had lost one biological parent had a 71% greater risk of going on to kill themselves than those whose parents were still alive while young people who lost more than one parent had a risk that was 2.7 times greater.

Jakobsen, Ida Skytte and Christiansen, Erik - Young people’s risk of suicide attempts in relation to parental death: A population-based register study Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry  (2010)doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2010.02298.x

Brain scans shed new light on childhood problems

The symptoms which can lead to children being diagnosed with bipolar disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can be quite similar but new research, from a team led by Alessandra M. Passarotti from the University of Chicago at Illinois, suggests that what goes on inside their brains might be completely different. The study involved children between the ages of 10 and 18, some diagnosed with bipolar disorder, some diagnosed with ADHD and others with no mental health problems. The children were wired up to an MRI scanner while they did a memory task involving faces with angry, happy or neutral expressions. Both groups showed dysfunction in the prefrontal cortex which controls executive function, working memory, attention, language and impulsivity. However, the ADHD group showed more severe dysfunction in the areas relating to working memory while the bipolar group showed more dysfunction in areas involved with processing and regulating emotions.

Light drinking in pregnancy not so damaging?

Pregnant women are often advised to stop drinking but a new study by a team of researchers, led by Yvonne J. Kelly from University College London suggests that the odd drink while pregnant has no long-term effects on babies' development. The team studied 11,513 children and their mothers - the children were born between September 2000 and January 2002. 6% of the mothers never drank at all, 60% drank but gave up while they were pregnant, 26% said that they were light drinkers (1 or 2 units a week), 5.5% were moderate drinkers (3-6 units a week) while 2.5% were heavy drinkers (more than 7 units a week). Children whose mothers were heavy drinkers were more likely to be hyperactive and have behavioural or emotional problems but there was no evidence to suggest any problems in children whose mothers had been light drinkers and they were actually 30% less likely to have behavioural problems.

One in five U.S. teenagers may have a mental-health problem

Dr Kathleen Merikangas from the National Institute of Mental Health in the U.S. has been leading a team of researchers looking into the mental health of children in the U.S. The team carried out face-to-face interviews with 10,123 children aged between 13 and 18. They found that 22.2% of them suffered from a mental-health problem severe enough to cause them distress in their day-to-day lives. Anxiety disorders were the most common problem, being found in 31.9% of the children with a mental-health problem, followed by behaviour disorders (19.1%), mood disorders (14.3%) and drug problems (11.4%). 40% of the participants with mental-health problems suffered from more than one disorder.

You can find out more about this study here

Mind the gap - changing from young people's to adults' mental health services

At some point children and teenagers with mental-health problems move from being treated by child and adolescent mental-health services (CAMHS) to being treated by adult services. A new study by researchers at the University of Warwick suggests that this transition might not always go as smoothly as it should. The study looked at 154 people who were making the move from CAMHS to adult services. It found that only 58% of participants actually moved across from one service to another. People with a history of severe mental illness, being on medication, or who had been admitted to hospital were more likely to make the transition than those with neurodevelopmental disorders, emotional/neurotic problems and emerging personality disorders. A fifth were discharged without being seen. Information transfer was hampered by a lack of understanding of each other's services, inconsistent documentation, mismatched computer systems and lengthy waiting lists.

Why are Indian children better behaved than White ones?

Previous research has shown that, on average, British Indian children are better behaved than White ones but no one knows why. A team of researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine tried to get to the bottom of this in a study of 14,197 children aged between five and 16, 361 of whom were British Indian. The British Indian children had less behaviour problems although they were just as likely to suffer from depression and anxiety. Part, although not all, of the British Indian children's advantage was that they were more likely to live in two-parent families and had better academic performance. While less well-off White families were more likely to have badly-behaved children less well-off Indian ones were not.

Goodman, Anna, Patel, Vikram and Leon, David A. - Why do British Indian children have an apparent mental health advantage? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry October 2010, 51(10), 1171-1183

Drunken mums and screwed-up kids

Psychologists sometimes use the maximum number of drinks people can remember having in one evening as a 'proxy' measure of alcohol problems. Not surprisingly women who can remember downing eighteen rum and cokes in an evening don't always make perfect mothers and a team of researchers from the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities have been looking into the relationship between mothers' maximum drinks ever consumed in 24 hours and their children's mental-health problems. They found that having a higher maximum consumption, even just at one point in a mother's life, was associated with conduct disorder, disruptive disorder and early substance use and misuse in their children.

Malone, Stephen M., McGue, Matt and Iacono, William G. - Mothers' maximum drinks ever consumed in 24 hours predicts mental health problems in adolescent offspring Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry September 2010, 51(9), 1067-1075

Teenage smoking and depression

Teenagers who smoke to cheer themselves up may actually be more prone to depression. Researchers from the University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre studied 662 teenagers asking them about their smoking habits and their mood. The participants were divided into three groups: those who had never smoked, those who smoked but did not do so to 'self-medicate' and those who smoked to improve their mood. Those who used cigarettes as mood-enhancers had higher risks of elevated depressive symptoms than those teenagers who had never smoked.

You can find out more about this research by clicking on the title of this post.

Tackling teenage binge drinking

Some teenagers' personalities make them more likely than other teenagers to develop problems with alcohol. Researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London studied 2,506 teenagers with an average age of 13.7. They tested them for sensation-seeking, impulsiveness, anxiety-sensitivity and hopelessness. From the initial sample 1,159 were identified as being at high risk for substance abuse. Of these children 624 received two, ninety-minute group sessions on alcohol prevention carried out by a trained teacher while the rest were a control group. The children who had not had the session were 1.7x more likely to report alcohol use while those who went to the sessions had a 55% decreased risk of binge drinking. Those who had had the sessions drank less often and had less alcohol-related problems.

You can find out more about this research by clicking on the title of this post.

Children with OCD - what's the long-term prognosis?

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a long-term condition that often starts in childhood. Researchers estimate that between 0.5-4% of children and teenagers develop the condition and between 30-50% of adults with OCD say their symptoms first started when they were children. However, there have been few long-term studies into how children with OCD get on in later life. Researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London studied 142 children who had been treated for OCD over a nine-year period. 41% still had OCD by the end of the study and 40% had another mental-health problem instead of, or as well as, OCD. People who had been iller for longer when they first started treatment were more likely to still have OCD nine years later. Around half the participants were still receiving and/or felt a need for further treatment by the end of the study.

Micali, N. ... [et al] - Long-term outcomes of obsessive-compulsive disorder: follow-up of 142 children and adolescents British Journal of Psychiatry August 2010, 197(2), 128-134

Brief intervention makes a big difference to teenagers in A&E

Brief motivational interviewing is a technique in which people are encouraged to think about their goals and how their current behaviour does, or does not, contribute towards achieving them. Researchers from the University of Michigan have been carrying out a project using the technique to counsel teenagers attending an A&E department in Flint, Michigan. They offered help to 726 teenagers aged between 14 and 18 who said that they had experienced aggression or had had at least two or three drinks in the past year. The brief interviews resulted in a 34% reduction in peer aggression compared to only a 16% reduction in a control group. The intervention also lead to a 32% reduction in alcohol-related problems over the next six months.

You can find out more about this research by clicking on the title of this post.

CBT shows long-term gains for childhood phobias and anxiety

Phobias and anxiety disorders in childhood do not always go away over time and can increase the risk of worsening mental-health problems, teenage pregnancy, dropping out of high school and not going on to college and university. There is now quite a lot of evidence that exposure-based cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) which aims to gradually get people used to what they are frightened of and change their thinking about it is effective at treating these problems but little research has been done into its long-term effectiveness. A team of researchers led by Lissette M. Saavedra from RTI International in North Carolina studied 67 people who had received exposure-based CBT as children and followed them up between eight and 13 years later to see how they were getting on. The study found that the participants' problems were still under control a long time after treatment.

Saavedra, Lissette ... [et al] - Cognitive behavioral treatment for childhood anxiety disorders: long-term effects on anxiety and secondary disorders in young adulthood Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry August 2010, 51(8), 924-934

Young, free, worried and gloomy

Some research has suggested an increase in depression and anxiety among children and adolescents over the last few decades. But are children really getting gloomier and more anxious or is the increase down to improved awareness and better diagnosis? A team of researchers led by Stephan Collishaw from Cardiff University compared two groups of 16- and 17-year-olds who filled out the same assessment tool in 1986 and 2006. In 1986 4,524 children and 7,120 parents filled out the assessment tool and in 2006 719 adolescents and 734 parents completed it. The study found that girls and their parents reported more emotional difficulties in 2006 than in 1986 and boys' parents did too. Twice as many young people reported frequent feelings of depression and anxiety in 2006 as in 1986. Some symptoms were more prevalent in 2006 than in 1986 such as worry, irritability and fatigue while others - loss of enjoyment and worthlessness - stayed the same. Social class, family breakdown and ethnicity all had no effect on children's increasing gloom and anxiety.

Collishaw, Stephan ... [et al] - Trends in adolescent emotional problems in England: a comparison of two national cohorts twenty years apart Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry August 2010, 51(8), 885-894

Smoking, ADHD and high-school dropouts

Teenagers who smoke or have been diagnosed with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are more likely to drop out of school. Researchers from the University of California, Davis studied 29,662 people asking them about their mental health as teenagers, whether they took drugs, smoked or drank when they were at school and whether they had dropped out of high school. The study found that 28.6% of the students with ADHD had dropped out compared to 26.6% with mania and 24.9% with a mood disorder. However, smoking was even worse with 29% of students who smoked dropping out of school. Using drugs and drinking increased dropout rates but only if pupils smoked as well; once smoking was taken into account drink and drugs had no effect on dropout rates.

You can find out more about this research by clicking on the link in the title of this post.