The dalhousie family therapy training program: our 6-year experience.

Introduction: Training in family therapy for general psychiatry residents during their child rotation is either not taught or the objectives not well described in psychiatric curricula.

Method: Based on the combined experience of 4 family therapists over a 6 year period with 56 students (psychiatry, social work, psychology), we describe our experience with training general psychiatry residents in an introduction to an interdisciplinary family therapy, systemic-reflective course during their child psychiatry rotation. The model was based on experiential training, where both trainees and supervisors could build skills as they reflect on their process as learners and teachers.

Diagnosis in adolescent inpatients: diagnostic confidence and comparison of diagnoses using ICD-9 and DSM-III.

In a prospective Multi-Centre research study involving four British Adolescent Psychiatry Inpatient Units, all 276 adolescent admissions were diagnosed using both ICD-9 and DSM-III. Ratings of diagnostic confidence for each diagnostic group varied considerably. Clinicians recorded high levels of confidence in the diagnosis of both Schizophrenia and Anorexia nervosa, while considerably lower scores were noted for Adjustment Disorders (ICD-9 3-digit code 309.

Treatment goal-planning: outcome findings of a British prospective multi-centre study of adolescent inpatient units.

A set of 16 treatment goals, related to 4 areas of adolescent functioning, were defined and employed in the initial and discharge assessments of 276 patients, admitted to 4 inpatient units, examined during a multi-centre prospective study of adolescent psychiatric hospitalizations. At discharge, subjects showed a substantial improvement across all treatment goals; least improvement was observed amongst those goals most frequently targeted. The clinical investigators consider the treatment goal definitions used in this study a meaningful way of measuring psychiatric disturbances in adolescence as well as a useful measure of change in an inpatient population.

Psychosocial adversity in an adolescent psychiatry inpatient cohort: WHO ICD-10 findings from a multicentre prospective study.

Sixteen Axis 5 ICD-10 codes were applied to a prospective multicentre study of 276 adolescent psychiatric inpatients. Frequency distributions were obtained for the whole cohort and separately for each of the seven main ICD-9 psychiatric diagnoses. Certain abnormal psychosocial situations were associated with particular diagnoses, and many significant correlations were found between Axis 5 codes.