Paranoia in patients attending child and adolescent mental health services.

Objective: Paranoia may be particularly prevalent during adolescence, building on the heightened social vulnerabilities at this age. Excessive mistrust may be corrosive for adolescent social relationships, especially in the context of mental health disorders. We set out to examine the prevalence, symptom associations, and persistence of paranoia in a cohort of young people attending child and adolescent mental health services.

The assessment of paranoia in young people: Item and test properties of the Bird Checklist of Adolescent Paranoia.

Background: Precise assessment tools for psychotic experiences in young people may help identify symptoms early and facilitate advances in treatment. In this study we provide an exemplar - with a paranoia scale for youth - for improving measurement precision for psychotic experiences using item response theory (IRT). We evaluate the psychometric properties of the new measure, test for measurement invariance, and assess its potential for computerised adaptive testing (CAT).

Cognitive, affective, and social factors maintaining paranoia in adolescents with mental health problems: A longitudinal study.

Paranoia may be a significant concern during adolescence, but there has been little research on excessive mistrust in young people. In this longitudinal study we set out to test the predictive ability of a number of cognitive, affective, and social factors in the early development of paranoia in a clinical adolescent population. Thirty four help-seeking adolescents, aged 11-16 years, reporting paranoid thoughts and attending mental health services were recruited.