Tuesday, November 02, 2004

Ten-Item Questionnaire Identifies Prepubertal and Early Adolescent Mania
Reuters Health story at Medscape - "A commonly used 10-item questionnaire is easy for parents to administer and helps clinicians discern between bipolar disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in prepubertal and early adolescent patients, according to investigators from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. They presented their findings here at the 51st annual meeting of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry." [Viewing Medscape resources requires registration, which is free].  
  

Treatment sometimes absent for children of mothers with mental illness
News-Medical.net story - "Children who have a mother diagnosed with a mental illness are at risk of psychiatric and behavioral problems, yet these children often fail to receive needed services, a new University of Michigan study indicates. 'These high-risk children do not necessarily get the services they may need to improve their lives, even though their parent is receiving treatment for mental health problems,' said Carol Mowbray, a U-M social work professor. One factor might involve the mother’s mental health care provider, who neglects to ask if she is a parent, she said." Mowbray was the lead author for the paper, 'Children of mothers diagnosed with serious mental illness: Patterns and predictors of service use' published recently in Mental Health Services Research, where an abstract is available at no charge.