Childhood and Adolescent Mental Disorders and Treatment Efficiency

Mental disorders among children and adolescents are common and problematic issues that must be studied. In general, mental disorders have an extremely negative impact on leisure activities, family life, and educational achievements. Very often, several of them develop at once. Such disorders are generally associated with increased depression and anxiety among children and adolescents and a great number of other adverse life-course and mental health outcomes. In spite of the great public health burden that is associated with mental health disorders among children and adolescents, the treatment process has many difficulties and challenges. Therefore, this paper is focused on mental disorders’ treatment efficiency among children and adolescents.

Mental health disorders and their efficient treatment are among the most discussed areas in scientific research. Therefore, in the first paper, the authors reviewed Mental Disorders prevalence in the US among adolescents (Merikangas et al., 2010a). This study conduction goal was to provide the approximate prevalence in the lives of people with DSM-IV mental illness and their comorbidity. In the research, data from the National Comorbidity Survey-Adolescent Supplement NCS-A was used. It provided a representative survey of 10123 teenagers aged from 13 to 18 on a countrywide level in the US (Merikangas et al., 2010a). As a result, it was found that anxiety disorder was the most common because its number was 31.9%, while the behavior disorder followed because its number was 19.1%. Mood disorders constituted 14.3%, while substance abuse disorders were at 11.4% (Merikangas et al., 2010a). This paper’s findings demonstrated the various mental disorders that exist in the US among adolescents (Merikangas et al., 2010a). Therefore, this data is critical in treatment planning and structuring prevention from the occurrence of such cases in the population. Moreover, this data can be used to represent the most effective treatment means.

Similar research was provided, but at this time it was focused not only on the mental disorder’s prevalence among teenagers but also among children. Mental disorders treatment and prevalence among children in the US were presented in the article (Merikangas et al., 2010b). Specific mental illnesses provided a twelve-month prevalence estimation that showed how they can be related to the demographic and social factors and the service patterns among teenagers and children based on the data that was collected by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (Merikangas et al., 2010b). In the research, the sample of 3042 participants aged 8 to 15 were used. The survey was conducted between 2001 and 2004 (Merikangas et al., 2010b). The study made it clear that 2.1% of people had conduct disorder, while 3.7% had mood disorder diagnoses and 8.65% of the participants had ADHD (Merikangas et al., 2010b). The lowest recorded disorders were anxiety disorders with 0.7%, and the eating disorders with 0.1% (Merikangas et al., 2010b). Moreover, it was found that boys were twice more likely to have ADHD in comparison with girls. Hence, the paper is crucial because it outlines the mental disorders prevalence and the treatment of these disorders among children.

The mental disorders prevalence among children and adolescents is quite serious and it is critical to understand what stigma is related to the people with mental disorders. Hence, this paper shows the different stigma associated with children’s mental disorders. In the research, stigmatization cases due to mental illness were reviewed through the information that was collected by the Medline and PsychInfo (Mukolo, Heflinger, & Wallston, 2010). From the data analysis, it is possible to see that the authors managed to find the concurrence on three stigma dimensions. The stigma dimensions involved discrimination, devaluation, and negative stereotypes (Mukolo et al., 2010). Moreover, it was outlined that stigma has two such contexts as general and self-public, and such two stigmatization targets as the individuals and the family (Mukolo et al., 2010). The paper demonstrates the stigma type differences that were experienced by children and by grown people. Therefore, children that were experiencing stigmatization due to their mental disorders must be counseled (Mukolo et al., 2010). This research is crucial because it covers one of the issues that are experienced by children that develop mental illnesses. It is critical to emphasize the issues that were related to the stigmatization because it is one of the major issues that are associated with various illnesses that patients experience.

Thus, according to the previous information, it is critical to note that mental disorders and the related difficulties can lead to serious problems in life, particularly, they can have a strong impact on the children and adolescents’ future. Therefore, in this research, the authors tried to examine the level to which childhood separation anxiety disorder can increase the risk for the psychopathology growth among young adults (Lewinsohn, Holm-Denoma, Small, Seeley, & Joiner, 2008). For the study, 816 Oregon Adolescent Depression Project members were involved (Lewinsohn et al., 2008). They provided reports about their mental health illnesses in the course of their lifetimes. Their mental illness reports as teenagers than were followed by reports at thirty years. In the research, the diagnosis assessments were conducted twice as 24 and 30 years of age (Lewinsohn et al., 2008). Basing on the adolescent’s diagnosis, the individuals were separated into four groups, such as participants without mental illnesses, participants with heterogeneous psychiatric disorders, participants with other anxiety disorders, and participants that were diagnosed with the separation anxiety disorder (Lewinsohn et al., 2008). As a result, it became clear that separation anxiety disorder was a high-risk factor in 78.6% of the mental conditions’ development among young adults (Lewinsohn et al., 2008). Hence, this paper is critical because it represents the real situation in this area and shows what consequences can be expected.

In addition to anxiety disorders, a great prevalence among adolescents and children is attributed to attention deficit/hyperactivity disorders that have a strong impact on their lives, particularly, education, family, and leisure time. Hence, the next study is concentrated on the idea that children who suffer from attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have a great risk of negative academic outcomes. Nonetheless, several types of research in this field were based on community settings and long-term longitudinal designs. This research studied the link between subsequent academic achievements in a community setting and childhood hyperactivity-inattention symptoms, which controls other environmental factors, socioeconomic status, and behavioral symptoms at baseline. 1264 participants age 12 to 26 were recruited from the longitudinal GAZEL Youth study. In the research, academic outcomes and environmental, as well as psychological variables were measured through self-reports. Moreover, to evaluate the childhood hyperactivity-inattention and other risk factors on academic achievements, the multivariate modeling was performed eight years later. The results showed that hyperactivity-inattention among children predicted grade retention, lower academic performance, obtaining of lower-level diploma, and failure to graduate from secondary school. Such results remained to be highly critical even after accounting for school difficulties at baseline. Moreover, the negative academic outcomes were strongly associated with childhood conduct disorder symptoms even after accounting for adjustment variables. Hence, the study showed a strong relationship between negative outcomes and hyperactivity-inattention, and it is highly crucial because such results can help to understand that similar disorders have to be seriously treated.

Another study that supports this position is also focused on the idea that ADHD is considered one of the most frequently diagnosed psychiatric disorders among children due to a great prevalence rate among school-aged youths. The negative outcomes of these disorders are usually associated with substance use disorders, problems with the sexual relationship, driving, employment, antisocial behavior, and a great risk for adolescent psychopathology (De Sanctis, 2008). Hence, the study is focused on children who suffer from ADHD because of they at a high risk of subsequent substance use disorders and maltreatment. The research investigated the childhood maltreatment relationship and other risk factors for substance use disorders among adolescents diagnosed with ADHD in the childhood. 80 adolescents who were diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 7 to 11 years old were screened for childhood maltreatment histories (De Sanctis, 2008). Moreover, in the research the lifetime history of the problematic substance use was obtained for every parent at baseline. Thus, childhood maltreatment predicted substance use disorders outcome above and over that accounted for by the childhood conduct diseases and problematic parental substance use, which are two main substance use disorder predictors among adolescents (De Sanctis, 2008). Therefore, it is possible to see that the ADHD is a serious disorder because of its negative effect on patients` lives. The most negative effect for children and adolescents with such a disorder can be difficulties with academic achievements.

Due to such negative ADHD consequences, it is critical to research and provide some treatments and interventions that will help to improve the situation among children and adolescents with such problem. Therefore, another study was conducted to provide a better understanding of the factors associated with various treatment techniques among children that have problems with the attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (Stein, Klein, Greenhouse, & Kogan, 2012). In the research. Cox proportional and logical regression hazard models were used for the data analysis that included 2077 children enrolled in Medicaid. Their age varied from six to twelve (Stein et al., 2012). Hence, the study provided the results about the ADHD treatment with medication treatment only, psychological intervention, or both methods combined and how that affected the treatment process. This research is highly crucial because it discovers the different approaches to the treatment of children who suffer from ADHD (Stein et al., 2012). The papers also provided different treatment plans that showed for whom the treatment was the most efficient: African American or Caucasians children (Stein et al., 2012). It can be seen that techniques that were used during the treatment from the first treatment episode often changed, showing that there was usually some dissatisfaction with the first technique that was used by medical practitioners.

Medication treatment plays a great role for the children and adolescents with ADHD and the drug use has to be researched in details for the best treatment in the future. Therefore, this article is concentrated on answering questions about how new ADHD drugs introduction has transformed the disorder treatment (Fullerton et al., 2012). The paper provides the treatment techniques analysis over the ten years period between 1996 and 2005 (Fullerton et al., 2012). This research’s main objective was to assess different trends in the pharmaceuticals use and their cost for children who suffer from ADHD. In the article data from more than 107000 children that were medically diagnosed with ADHD was used (Fullerton et al., 2012). The study found that children that were treated with drugs had only a slight increase between the years that developed from 60% in 1996 to 63% in 2005 (Fullerton et al., 2012). According to the paper, the antipsychotics use between these years increased from 8% to 18%, which means the rise of 10% (Fullerton et al., 2012). The antipsychotics spending by the Florida government increased by 600% (Fullerton et al., 2012). Therefore, this paper is crucial due to the trends representation in the ADHD children treatment.

In the searching for the best ADHD treatment, it is critical to be focused not only on the medication treatment, but to consider other alternatives and to decide what method is the best to use. In general, adolescents and children with ADHD can show some hyperactive, impulsive, and inattentive behavior that interfered with their development and functioning and appears in more than one setting, particularly, home, work, school, and other places (Meppelink, De Bruin, & Bogels, 2016). Such inattentive behavior relies on the activities and tasks planning and organizing difficulties and attention maintaining struggles over some period of time, including lack of persistence (Meppelink et al., 2016). The hyperactive behavior examples can be inappropriate climbing and running, excessive talking, and feet or hands tapping or fidgeting (Meppelink et al., 2016). The impulsivity is based on the inhibiting proponent responses’ difficulties, particularly, other activities or conversations intruding or interrupting, crucial decision making without forethought, and answering the question finishing (Meppelink et al., 2016). To deal with such a serious disorder, psychological and medication interventions are commonly used. Thus, in this article, the authors decided to evaluate the mindful training versus medication in the children with ADHD treatment (Meppelink et al., 2016). In general, ADHD has the prevalence of about 5% among children and it has a great impact on the children and their families (Meppelink et al., 2016). It is critical to notice that between medication and training, the medication is considered the most preferred tool for the ADHD treatment, although its results can last only for a short time, fewer people can adjust to this treatment form, and medications most of the time have strong side effects (Meppelink et al., 2016). Therefore, the research is trying to find other methods for this disorder treatment. It was researched how mindfulness training can be used in a cost-effective way among children who suffer from ADHD. The article focused on 120 families in which children`s age was from nine to eighteen years old (Meppelink et al., 2016). This study is critical for searching the other treatment methods other than medically tested treatment methods for ADHD handling among children.

In general, it is critical to understand the treatments and factors and issues related to them clearly. Hence, the paper is focused on outlining various factors that can be associated with different termination and treatment techniques among preschoolers that have problems with the attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (Lien et al., 2015). The study is focused on the level to which different healthcare providers and families’ characteristics predict the treatment start, treatment termination, and treatment techniques among preschool children with new ADHD diagnoses (Lien et al., 2015). A group of 3583 preschoolers in Taiwan that were diagnosed with ADHD participated in the research (Lien et al., 2015). The study reviewed the characteristics and health records of each child. The results showed that only 25% of the patients remained for the treatment after a year, while 41% got both medicinal and psychological techniques and around 80% of the new cases got their initial treatment within the first months (Lien et al., 2015). This paper significance consists in showing how various service providers and various families affected treatment termination and entry mode among preschoolers that suffered from ADHD.

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Except for the ADHD disorder, disruptive behaviors have a strong impact on children and adolescents’ lives. They have to be treated in an appropriate way through medical and psychological interventions (Eyberg, Nelson, & Boggs, 2009). Therefore, this research used data that was collected between 1996 and 2007. Its main goal was to update Brestan and Eyberg research of 1998 in the evidence-based psychosocial treatments (EBTs) area for teenagers and children who had such disruptive behaviors as conduct problems and oppositional defiant disorders (Eyberg et al., 2009). The used treatments’ technique was the data assessment to ensure the psychological procedures’ dissemination and promotion. The research showed that from the collected data sixteen EBTs were identified. Moreover, the authors are focused on the evidence-based psychological treatments, their importance. and the treatment outcomes mediators (Eyberg et al., 2009). The paper finished by offering clear recommendations based on the best practices that were proposed for various disruptive behaviors’ treatment among teenagers and children. Moreover, in the paper, there is a call for future research that is critical for better moderators’ understanding and development of different strategies that are required for the teenagers and children with disruptive behaviors (Eyberg et al., 2009). The paper is highly critical because it demonstrated various techniques that could be used for the disruptive disorders treatment among teenagers and children.

All the mental disorders mentioned above have an extremely negative impact on the children and adolescents’ lives. To provide an effective treatment that would handle these diseases, it is critical to analyze the various techniques that are implemented in this area. The research provides a Monthly Treatment and Progress Summary (MTRS) the main goal of which is the evaluation of different techniques that are often used by different medical practitioners (Ormito, Higa-McMillan, Muller & Daleiden, 2012). The paper exposes the therapeutic practice element factor structure evaluation. These elements were reported by different medical practitioners and analyzed in the specific community. Therefore, the study covers the gap between what happens on the ground level and what is published (Ormito, Higa-McMillan, Muller & Daleiden, 2012). In the study, data from 278 therapists that were based in Hawaii was analyzed, and the endorsement for each treatment method was examined (Ormito, Higa-McMillan, Muller & Daleiden, 2012). Thus, it was found that different therapists report having to use the MTRS for their findings. From the analysis of the different techniques, it became known what techniques were endorsed by the most therapists (Ormito, Higa-McMillan, Muller & Daleiden, 2012). This research is crucial because it represents the most useful techniques in different conditions’ treatment.

One of the most well-known and wide-spread treatment techniques can be Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. In order to decide whether it has an efficient impact, it has to be analyzed in relation to children and adolescents. Therefore, in this study, the authors were trying to examine the effect that was associated with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) among adolescents that were clinically depressed (Stikkelbroek, Bodden, Dekivic, & Baar, 2013). In the research, the CBT has measured with the Treatment as usual (TAU) therapies, and it showed that related to the depression disorders had prevalence from 2% to 5% among adolescents (Stikkelbroek et al., 2013). Therefore, Cognitive Behavior Therapy was one of the treatment methods, but its effectiveness as the disorders’ treatment has to be researched. In the paper, the author was trying to examine the CBT effectiveness and to establish its cost-effectiveness in different conditions in therapy treatment (Stikkelbroek et al., 2013). The targeted population included people aged 12 to 21 who had problems with depressions (Stikkelbroek et al., 2013). Therefore, in the study, such different assessments as the post, pre, and follow-up between six and twelve months were conducted. Moreover, during the treatment, two mediators’ assessments were taken (Stikkelbroek et al., 2013). Thus, the paper is focused on Cognitive Behavior Therapy and its cost-effectiveness for those in whom it was used.

In addition to the treatments mentioned above, there are many other interventions that can be applied to mental health disorders among children and adolescents area. Hence, one of the articles is focused on the conduct problems prevention among children and the improvement of the readiness for this problem (Webster-Stratton, Reid, & Stoolmiller, 2008). The paper discovers the intervention outcomes for all participants, including parents, their children, and the teachers. The research showed that the school readiness involves such strategies as school and family involvement, social competence, emotional self-regulation, and the conduct problem to ensure that the children can make it in life (Webster-Stratton et al., 2008). Nonetheless, the risk exposure is strongly related to the poverty increase that can lead children to even more conduct problems, less parent-teacher involvement, less social skills, and emotional deregulation (Webster-Stratton et al., 2008). In general, the authors put an emphasis on such programs as Emotion curriculum and The Incredible Years (IY) Teacher Classroom Management as the impediment problem prevention programs (Webster-Stratton et al., 2008). Therefore, the study showed that universal preventive curriculum can be considered a critical tool for ensuring children protection from the risk factors.

Another effective treatment is inpatient care, and it is belied to have a strong impact on children and adolescents with mental health disorders. Hence, the study is focused on inpatient care as the most widely used intensive care component of adolescent and child mental health services internationally. Hence, the study describes the inpatient treatment as a complex intervention that is often used for the most crucial mental health disease in adolescent and child psychiatry (Green, 2007). As a method in the research, economic evaluation with a one-year follow-up after discharge that was conducted in eight UK units was used (Green, 2007). The results showed a clinically meaningful and significant improvement on twelve points of the Childhood Global Assessment Scale that was followed by a 16.6-week admission mean (Green, 2007). Such significant results were repeated after one year. In comparison, during the 16.4-week pre-admission mean period an improvement with a 3.7-point result was noticed (Green, 2007). Moreover, the assessment of health needs demonstrated similar results as parent and teacher-rated symptoms. Additionally, the improvement was noticed among all diagnoses and better premorbid family functioning, positive therapeutic impact, and longer stays functioning, which helped to predict independently even better outcome (Green, 2007). The mean admission cost of 24,100 pounds and other similar costs were found in the post-discharge and pre-admission support (Green, 2007). Therefore, the study showed that inpatient treatment can be related to health gains with substantive sustenance in the diagnosis range. Lack of alternatives to intensive outpatient treatment lead to the limitation in unqualified interference related to casual effects, although the measurement rigor provides the strongest date indication of a positive admission impact on the difficult mental health disorders among young people (Green, 2007). Hence, this research is highly important because this is the first large-scale study that is focused on inpatient treatment costs and effectiveness, while previous studies were criticized due to their methodological weaknesses.

However, it is critical to understand that mental disorders treatment challenges are not the only problem which children and adolescents with mental health disorders have to face. Another problem from the global perspective can be academic difficulties. Global academic difficulties is a great problem in handling the anxiety disorders among children, but there used to exist a lack of attention to specific academic difficulties. The main goal of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of 7 specific academic impairments among adolescents and children with anxiety disorders, to examine the anxiety treatment impact on the impairments, and to determine if the impairments can be associated with clinical characteristics, particularly, global impairment, anxiety severity and disorder type, and such demographic characteristics as age, gender, and race (Nail, Christofferson, Ginsburg, Drake, & Philip, 2015). 488 young people took part in the Child-Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Study. These people were aged 10.7 on average and had generalized, social, and separation anxiety disorders. The global impairment, anxiety severity, and academic impairments were measured (Nail et al., 2015). The results showed that, at baseline, nearly 10% of the sample was rated as academically impaired on six out of seven items, while 47% of the sample was rated as impaired on four out of seven items (Nail et al., 2015). No significant difference was found in the parent-reported academic impairment by gender, age, or race (Nail et al., 2015). Moreover, academic impairment was seriously correlated in a positive way with anxiety severity and correlated in a negative way with global functioning. Therefore, it is possible to note that specific academic impairments are prevalent among young people who suffer from anxiety disorders (Nail et al., 2015). The evidence-based treatments’ benefits extend beyond symptom relief and involve improved academic performance as perceived by parents of young people with anxiety disorders (Nail et al., 2015). Hence, this paper is crucial because it defines specific academic difficulties which people with mental disorders have to deal with. That helps to realize what must be done improve the symptom relief through academic performance improvement.

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Overall, it is critical to notice that mental health disorders prevalence among children and adolescents has a great level and a strong impact on their lives and abilities. Many types of research and studies were conducted in this area, and some of them prove through the evidence-based data that the mental health disorders prevalence in high. Moreover, children and adolescents with mental health disorders experience the stigma and its dimensions involve discrimination, devaluation, and negative stereotypes. Such issues have to be considered for better treatments and interventions implementation. Anxiety disorders have a great prevalence among teenagers and children, and their most critical danger is that they can continue in the adult life. Another wide-spread disorder among this group is the attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It has a strong negative impact on children and adolescent education, family, and leisure time. In particular, the negative effect was noticed in the area of academic achievements. Therefore, a great number of researches were focused on this disorder treatment, and one of the efficient treatments is considered to be the medication treatment.

However, it is critical to understand that the emphasis has to be put not only on the medication use but also on other alternatives, especially mixed treatments. One of the most well-known treatments in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, but there are many other interventions besides it that lead to positive results among children and adolescents that suffer from mental disorders. Still, one of the strongest and most complex interventions is considered to be the inpatient treatment due to the provided effect on children and adolescents. However, it is critical to realize that not only treatments and interventions can lead to successful results in fighting mental health disorders, because challenges and difficulties which parents and their children have to face play a great role in this process. Thus, one of the main barriers is considered to be academic difficulties, and to improve the mental health disorders’ treatments these barriers have to be removed. Hence, there are many kinds of literature that are focused on this area, but further studies and researches still have to be conducted.

In general, mental health disorders among children and adolescents are a wide area in the health care field, but in spite of many types of research presented in this area, many issues have to be covered and studied in detail through evidence-based methods. A great amount of research must be done on the question pf why some treatments or interventions can be ineffective. The main point is to understand why some children and adolescents do not respond to some interventions, particularly cognitive behavioral therapy, but can benefit from other therapies or medications. This issue is highly critical because it will help realize which cases a specific intervention or treatment can be highly effective in. Due to the realization of what treatment is the best to be used in specific mental health disorders, the healthcare providers will be able to save time and use the most effective intervention initially, instead of after several ineffective attempts.