The association of developmental trajectories of adolescent mental health with early-adult functioning.

Background: Mental health problems during adolescence may create a problematic start into adulthood for affected individuals. Usually, categorical indicators of adolescent mental health issues (yes/no psychiatric disorder) are used in studies into long-term functional outcomes. This however does not take into account the full spectrum of mental health, nor does it consider the trajectory of mental health problem development over time.

Predicting Initial Specialist Mental Health Care Use in Adolescence Using Self-, Parent-, and Teacher-Reported Problem Behavior: A Prospective Community-Based Record-Linkage Study.

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the relative importance of self-, parent-, and teacher-reported problem behavior for initial specialist mental health care use in adolescence and the extent to which the relative importance of each informant changes over time.

Methods: Data from the Dutch community-based cohort study TRacking Adolescents' Individual Lives Survey (TRAILS) were linked to administrative records of specialist mental health care organizations. Self-, parent-, and teacher-reported internalizing and externalizing problems were assessed at ages 11, 13, and 16 years, with self-reported problems also assessed at age 19 years.

The predictive value of childhood subthreshold manic symptoms for adolescent and adult psychiatric outcomes.

Background: Childhood subthreshold manic symptoms may represent a state of developmental vulnerability to Bipolar Disorder (BD) and may also be associated with other adverse psychiatric outcomes. To test this hypothesis we examined the structure and predictive value of childhood subthreshold manic symptoms for common psychiatric disorders presenting by early adulthood.

Methods: Subthreshold manic symptoms at age 11 years and lifetime clinical outcomes by age 19 years were ascertained in the TRacking Adolescents' Individual Lives Survey (TRAILS), a prospective Dutch community cohort.

Cohort Profile Update: the TRacking Adolescents' Individual Lives Survey (TRAILS).

TRAILS consists of a population cohort (N=2230) and a clinical cohort (N=543), both of which were followed from about age 11 years onwards. To date, the population cohort has been assessed five times over a period of 11 years, with retention rates ranging between 80% and 96%. The clinical cohort has been assessed four times over a period of 8 years, with retention rates ranging between 77% and 85%.

The TRacking Adolescents' Individual Lives Survey (TRAILS): design, current status, and selected findings.

Objectives: The objectives of this study were as follows: to present a concise overview of the sample, outcomes, determinants, non-response and attrition of the ongoing TRacking Adolescents' Individual Lives Survey (TRAILS), which started in 2001; to summarize a selection of recent findings on continuity, discontinuity, risk, and protective factors of mental health problems; and to document the development of psychopathology during adolescence, focusing on whether the increase of problem behavior often seen in adolescence is a general phenomenon or more prevalent in vulnerable teens, thereby giving rise to diverging developmental pathways.

Method: The first and second objectives were achieved using descriptive statistics and selective review of previous TRAILS publications; and the third objective by analyzing longitudinal data on internalizing and externalizing problems using Linear Mixed Models (LMM).

Results: The LMM analyses supported the notion of diverging pathways for rule-breaking behaviors but not for anxiety, depression, or aggression.

Benefits of extensive recruitment effort persist during follow-ups and are consistent across age group and survey method. The TRAILS study.

Background: Extensive recruitment effort at baseline increases representativeness of study populations by decreasing non-response and associated bias. First, it is not known to what extent increased attrition occurs during subsequent measurement waves among subjects who were hard-to-recruit at baseline and what characteristics the hard-to-recruit dropouts have compared to the hard-to-recruit retainers. Second, it is unknown whether characteristics of hard-to-recruit responders in a prospective population based cohort study are similar across age group and survey method.