Background: Parents exposed to psychosocial adversities often experience challenges which, combined with the needs of a new-born infant, can be difficult to manage and increase the risk of poor outcomes for both parents and infants. Psychosocial adversity can disrupt the development of parental-foetal attachment to the baby during pregnancy, which can have a negative effect on parental care and quality of interaction during the postnatal period. This intervention is based on the proposition that enhanced parental capacity to mentalise and emotionally connect to unborn children during pregnancy, and better understanding about how to manage distressing infant behaviour (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Postnatal depression adversely affects many mothers and infants with good evidence that caregiving difficulties associated with depressive symptoms play a key role in later adverse childhood outcomes. In many countries, there is only limited support available for women who experience symptoms of depression during the postnatal period, particularly those experiencing subthreshold symptom levels. Furthermore, mental health services and community family health services in many countries tend to focus primarily on providing help for depressive symptoms or maternal caregiving, respectively, despite these problems commonly being comorbid.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Worldwide, little information is available about the extent to which children with mental disorders in the general population receive treatment from health professionals that meets minimal clinical practice guidelines. This study identifies the percentage of 6-17 year olds with mental disorders in the 2013-2014 Australian national survey of mental health who had sufficient contact with health professionals during the 18 months after the survey to have received treatment meeting criteria for minimally adequate treatment (MAT). It also identifies factors associated with children having this level of contact with health professionals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
May 2018
Objective: This study examined whether the 12-month prevalence of major depressive disorder (MDD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and conduct disorder (CD) among 6- to 17-year-olds in Australia changed between 1998 and 2013 to 2014. It also investigated whether changes in the prevalence of disorders over this time varied for children living in families containing 2 parents versus single parents, and families with high versus low income.
Method: The study used data from national surveys conducted in Australia in 1998 (N = 3,597) and 2013 to 2014 (N = 5,359).
Objective: To identify the percentage of 4-17 year olds with mental disorders in Australia who attended health professionals for single or repeat visits to get help for emotional and behavioural problems during a 12-month period. To identify factors associated with single and repeat visits, and the average length of time between visits. To compare the number of parent-reported visits with visits recorded in the Medicare Benefits Schedule.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Internet-based interventions moderated by community nurses have the potential to improve support offered to new mothers, many of whom now make extensive use of the Internet to obtain information about infant care. However, evidence from population-based randomized controlled trials is lacking.
Objective: The aim of this study was to test the non-inferiority of outcomes for mothers and infants who received a clinic-based postnatal health check plus nurse-moderated, Internet-based group support when infants were aged 1-7 months as compared with outcomes for those who received standard care consisting of postnatal home-based support provided by a community nurse.
Forty-five women participated in a variant of the social orienting paradigm employed in "Maternal Touch Predicts Attentional Bias Towards Faces in Young Children" (Reece, in press) [1]. On a given trial, they saw a mathematical equation and indicated whether this equation was true or false. Equations were superimposed on face or house distractors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To identify factors predicting use, adherence and attrition with a nurse-moderated web-based group intervention designed to support mothers of infants aged 0-6 months.
Design: 9-Month observational study.
Setting: Community maternal and child health service.
Objectives: To identify the prevalence of stimulant and antidepressant medication use by children and adolescents with symptoms meeting the criteria for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) in Australia. To identify factors associated with stimulant and antidepressant use by children and adolescents in Australia.
Methods: Data are from a nationally representative sample of 4- to 17-year-olds (n = 6310).
Casual social touch influences emotional perceptions, attitudes, and behaviours of interaction partners. We asked whether these influences extend to third-party observers. To this end, we developed the Social Touch Picture Set comprising line drawings of dyadic interactions, half of which entailed publicly acceptable casual touch and half of which served as no-touch controls.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF