Predictors of Service Use for Mental Health Problems Among British Schoolchildren.

Background:   Most previous studies of service use in relation to mental health have examined services in the USA. We wanted to provide up-to-date findings from a general population sample of British schoolchildren.

Method:   A total of 2461 children aged 5-15 from the 1999 British Child and Adolescent Mental Health Survey were followed up for 3 years.

Child Mental Health is Everybody's Business: The Prevalence of Contact with Public Sector Services by Type of Disorder Among British School Children in a Three-Year Period.

Method:   A third of the children from the 1999 British Child and Adolescent Mental Health Survey were followed-up over 3 years. Parents provided summary information on service contacts in relation to mental health; selected subgroups provided more detailed information by telephone interview.

Results:   Common overlaps in service use were between health services, between teachers and educational specialists, and between the latter and CAMHS or social services.

The children's services interview: validity and reliability.

Background: The Children Service Interview was designed as a brief measure of service use related to mental health problems in Great Britain.

Method: We validated the Children's Services Interview against medical records from a sample of 87 children, and assessed test-retest reliability from 25 parents completing two interviews. We examined criterion validity by looking at the service use patterns of children attending clinics for different types of disorders.

Service Contacts Among the Children Participating in the British Child and Adolescent Mental Health Surveys.

Method:   A third of the children from the 1999 British Child and Adolescent Mental Health Survey were followed up over 3 years. Parents provided summary information on service contacts for emotional, behavioural and concentration difficulties, with more detailed information being obtained by telephone interview for selected subgroups.

Results:   Having a psychiatric disorder predicted substantially increased contact with social services, special educational needs resources, the youth justice system and mental health services (district CAMHS and tier four, but not tier two).

The use of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) in Southern European countries.

This paper reports a selection of completed or ongoing studies that have evaluated or applied the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) in five countries of Southern Europe: Italy, Spain, Portugal, Croatia, and France. In Italy, the SDQ has been used to study its concurrent validity with other norm-based instruments (Child Behavior Checklist-CBCL and Disruptive Behavior Disorder Rating Scale-DBDRS), to assess the efficacy of a behavioural school training, and as part of an epidemiological study. In Spain, the SDQ was used to analyse the association between respiratory and other behavioural problems.