Does Awareness of either Psychotropic Medication or Behavioral Interventions Bias College Students' Ratings of a Child's Behavior?

Caregiver awareness that a child receives either psychotropic medication or behavioral intervention could bias that caregiver's perception of the child's behavior and give rise to incorrect conclusions about intervention effectiveness. To evaluate bias for the effects of either medication or behavioral intervention, we randomly assigned 114 participants to one of the four groups: Medication information (Med info), Behavioral information (Beh info), No change (control group), and Reverse video (Rev Vid; also no change, but participants watched videos in the reverse order). Participants watched two 5-min video clips of a child engaging in low to moderate levels of problem behavior.

Use of PHQ-9 and pharmacogenetic testing in clinical practice.

Background: This project evaluated the clinical use of pharmacogenetic testing in an outpatient psychiatric practice, integrated a standardized measure for assessing depressive symptoms, and captured data regarding treatment efficacy.

Local Problem: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2016), more than 10% of all outpatient office visits include a depression-related diagnosis. Patients who require more medication trials to experience remission of depressive symptoms are more likely to relapse in the follow-up period than those who do not (National Institute of Mental Health, 2001).