disorders in later adolescent or adult life, according to research published in the Journal of Pediatrics.
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“If confirmed, this observation could have very significant clinical and public health implications in the identification of children at the highest risk for the development of major depressive disorder,” Mai Uchida, MD, of the department of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and colleagues wrote. “Early identification is the first step toward effectively allocating limited societal resources to help prevent illness progression and its associated impairments in children most in need.”
Dr. Uchida and her colleagues analyzed a sample of 537 children aged 6-17 years from two longitudinal studies of children and their parents with and without ADHD, excluding the ADHD probands in their analysis. Parents answered the CBCL, which consisted of behavioral questions translated into scores for subscales involving being anxious and/or depressed, withdrawn and/or depressed, social problems, thought problems, aggressive behavior, rule-breaking behavior, attention problems, and somatic complaints.
The sample was then divided into four groups; there were 172 children with parents who had a mood disorder but the children did not have CBCL anxiety/depression subsyndromal elevations (high risk group); 22 children without a parental history of mood disorder but had CBCL anxiety/depression subsyndromal elevations (subsyndromal major depressive disorder); 22 children with a parental history of mood disorder and CBCL anxiety/depression subsyndromal elevations (high-risk and subsyndromal major depressive disorder); and 186 children in a control group with no parental history of mood disorder or CBCL anxiety/depression subsyndromal elevations.
Compared with the control group, children with a history of parental mood disorders and children with baseline CBCL anxiety/depression subsyndromal elevations had intermediate risk of developing major depression and anxiety disorders. However, the highest risk was among children with both a parental history of mood disorder and baseline CBCL anxiety/depression subsyndromal elevations.
Using data from two previously collected longitudinal studies was a potential limitation of the study, Dr. Uchida and her associates said, but they noted the CBCL scale has predictive utility for identifying anxiety and depressive disorders in children later in life.
“Considering its simplicity, strong psychometric properties, and limited cost, the CBCL scale lends itself to be used by health professionals and educators in the community,” they wrote.
This study was partly supported by National Institutes of Health and the Massachusetts General Hospital Pediatric Psychopharmacology Council Fund. Joseph Biederman, MD, received research support from Lundbeck AS, Neurocentria, Pfizer, Shire, Sunovion, and others, and has relationships with multiple other associations and pharmaceutical companies. The other authors have no relevant financial disclosures.
SOURCE: Uchida M et al. J Pediatr. 2018 Oct;201:252-8.