The State of Evidence of Psychotropic Medications for Internalizing Disorders in the Preschool Population

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Seif ◽  
Erin Moran ◽  
Justin Barterian ◽  
Gabriel Watson ◽  
Hannah Fish ◽  
...  
2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin A. Barterian ◽  
Erin Rappuhn ◽  
Erin L. Seif ◽  
Gabriel Watson ◽  
Hannah Ham ◽  
...  

Psychotropic medications are being prescribed off-label by psychiatrists to treat preschool children diagnosed with internalizing disorders. In this review, the current state of evidence is presented for medications used to treat preschool children (ages 2–5 year olds) diagnosed with anxiety and/or depressive disorders. Eleven studies were systematically identified for this review based on a priori criteria. Overall, the available literature revealed that studies addressing the medication treatment of internalizing disorders in preschoolers are extremely limited and represent relatively weak research methodologies. Given the increasing prevalence of the use of psychotropic medications to treat preschool children and the unique challenges associated with working with this population, it is imperative that mental health practitioners are aware of the current, albeit limited, research on this practice to help make informed treatment decisions. Suggestions about how to monitor potential costs and benefits in those unique cases in which psychopharmacological treatments might be considered for young children are given. Moreover, areas of additional research for this population are discussed.


2002 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 68-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Regina Noto ◽  
Elisaldo de A Carlini ◽  
Patrícia C Mastroianni ◽  
Vanete C Alves ◽  
José Carlos F Galduróz ◽  
...  

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the prescription and dispensation of psychotropic medications through the analysis of the prescriptions/notices kept at various institutions in two cities in the state of São Paulo. METHODS: The prescriptions kept at drugstores, magistral pharmacies, primary care settings and hospitals were collected and analyzed in collaboration with the Sanitary Vigilance agencies in the year of 1999. The information in the prescriptions/notices were typed and tabulated. RESULTS: A total of 108,215 prescriptions were processed, being 76,954 for benzodiazepines, 26,930 for anorexigenic drugs, 3,540 for opiates and 788 for other drugs. The benzodiazepines most frequently prescribed were: diazepam (31,644), bromazepam (16,911) and clonazepam (7,929). Among the anorexigenic drugs, diethylpropion (14,800) and femproporex (10,942) were the most common. When compared to men, women were given more prescriptions, mainly for anorexigenic drugs: the ratio was 10:1 in the prescriptions for diethylpropion and femproporex. The few magistral pharmacies (n=6) handled even more prescriptions than did the drugstores (n=49). A number of errors and inconsistencies were detected in the prescriptions analyzed. CONCLUSIONS: The results confirm the occurrence of an irrational use of such medications and a series of inadequate practices related to their prescription in Brazil. Therefore, they point out to the need of a comprehensive review of the government's control system of these substances.


2003 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 489-524
Author(s):  
Brent Pollitt

Mental illness is a serious problem in the United States. Based on “current epidemiological estimates, at least one in five people has a diagnosable mental disorder during the course of a year.” Fortunately, many of these disorders respond positively to psychotropic medications. While psychiatrists write some of the prescriptions for psychotropic medications, primary care physicians write more of them. State legislatures, seeking to expand patient access to pharmacological treatment, granted physician assistants and nurse practitioners prescriptive authority for psychotropic medications. Over the past decade other groups have gained some form of prescriptive authority. Currently, psychologists comprise the primary group seeking prescriptive authority for psychotropic medications.The American Society for the Advancement of Pharmacotherapy (“ASAP”), a division of the American Psychological Association (“APA”), spearheads the drive for psychologists to gain prescriptive authority. The American Psychological Association offers five main reasons why legislatures should grant psychologists this privilege: 1) psychologists’ education and clinical training better qualify them to diagnose and treat mental illness in comparison with primary care physicians; 2) the Department of Defense Psychopharmacology Demonstration Project (“PDP”) demonstrated non-physician psychologists can prescribe psychotropic medications safely; 3) the recommended post-doctoral training requirements adequately prepare psychologists to prescribe safely psychotropic medications; 4) this privilege will increase availability of mental healthcare services, especially in rural areas; and 5) this privilege will result in an overall reduction in medical expenses, because patients will visit only one healthcare provider instead of two–one for psychotherapy and one for medication.


Author(s):  
T. A. Welton

Various authors have emphasized the spatial information resident in an electron micrograph taken with adequately coherent radiation. In view of the completion of at least one such instrument, this opportunity is taken to summarize the state of the art of processing such micrographs. We use the usual symbols for the aberration coefficients, and supplement these with £ and 6 for the transverse coherence length and the fractional energy spread respectively. He also assume a weak, biologically interesting sample, with principal interest lying in the molecular skeleton remaining after obvious hydrogen loss and other radiation damage has occurred.


1980 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Damico ◽  
John W. Oller

Two methods of identifying language disordered children are examined. Traditional approaches require attention to relatively superficial morphological and surface syntactic criteria, such as, noun-verb agreement, tense marking, pluralization. More recently, however, language testers and others have turned to pragmatic criteria focussing on deeper aspects of meaning and communicative effectiveness, such as, general fluency, topic maintenance, specificity of referring terms. In this study, 54 regular K-5 teachers in two Albuquerque schools serving 1212 children were assigned on a roughly matched basis to one of two groups. Group S received in-service training using traditional surface criteria for referrals, while Group P received similar in-service training with pragmatic criteria. All referrals from both groups were reevaluated by a panel of judges following the state determined procedures for assignment to remedial programs. Teachers who were taught to use pragmatic criteria in identifying language disordered children identified significantly more children and were more often correct in their identification than teachers taught to use syntactic criteria. Both groups identified significantly fewer children as the grade level increased.


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