Patterns of health service use for children with mental disorders in an Australian state population cohort.

Objectives: The rate of mental health services provided to children and young people is increasing worldwide, including in Australia. The aim of this study was to describe patterns of hospital and ambulatory mental health service use among a large population cohort of adolescents followed from birth, with consideration of variation by age, sex and diagnosis.

Methods: Characteristics of services provided for children with mental disorder diagnoses between birth and age 17.

Levels of Involvement with Child Protection Services Associated with Early Adolescent Police Contact as a Victim and Person of Interest.

The relationship between childhood maltreatment and subsequent offending/victimization is well established. However, the magnitude of this relationship for different levels of child protection services (CPS) involvement is poorly understood, due to measurement issues, lack of longitudinal data, and reliance on reports of substantiated maltreatment, which can underestimate the impact of maltreatment. This study examined associations between CPS involvement during childhood (ages 0 to <11 years) and police services contact (as a victim and/or a person of interest) for criminal incidents in early adolescence (11 to ~14 years), differentiated according to levels of CPS involvement (i.

Cumulative comorbidity between neurodevelopmental, internalising, and externalising disorders in childhood: a network approach.

Cumulative comorbidity of mental disorders is common, but the extent and patterns of comorbid psychopathology in childhood are not well established. The current study aimed to elucidate the emergent patterns of cumulative mental disorder comorbidity in children using network analysis of diagnoses recorded between birth and age 12 years. Participants were 90,269 children (mean age 12.

Childhood Schizotypy and Adolescent Mental Disorder.

Background And Hypothesis: Schizotypy provides a framework for understanding the developmental nature of psychotic disorders and a means of identifying "at-risk" individuals early in the lifespan. However, there is a lack of prospective longitudinal research examining the relationship between schizotypy in childhood and later psychotic and other mental disorders. We hypothesized that distinct profiles of schizotypy in childhood would be differentially associated with psychotic and other mental disorders emerging later in adolescence.

Early life exposure to air pollution and psychotic-like experiences, emotional symptoms, and conduct problems in middle childhood.

Background: Air pollution has been linked to a variety of childhood mental health problems, but results are inconsistent across studies and the effect of exposure timing is unclear. We examined the associations between air pollution exposure at two time-points in early development and psychotic-like experiences (PLEs), and emotional and conduct symptoms, assessed in middle childhood (mean age 11.5 years).

Conditions of Birth and Early Childhood Developmental Risk for Mental Disorders.

Distinct classes of children in the general population are at increased odds of later mental illness and other adverse outcomes according to patterns of early childhood developmental vulnerability. If certain risk factors known at the time of birth are reliably associated with membership in early childhood risk classes, then preventative interventions could be initiated in the earliest years of life. Associations between 14 factors known at the time of birth and membership in early childhood risk classes were examined in 66,464 children.

Parental mental disorders and offspring schizotypy in middle childhood: an intergenerational record linkage study.

Purpose: To investigate relationships between distinct schizotypy risk profiles in childhood and the full spectrum of parental mental disorders.

Methods: Participants were 22,137 children drawn from the New South Wales Child Development Study, for whom profiles of risk for schizophrenia-spectrum disorders in middle childhood (age ~ 11 years) were derived in a previous study. A series of multinomial logistic regression analyses examined the likelihood of child membership in one of three schizotypy profiles (true schizotypy, introverted schizotypy, and affective schizotypy) relative to the children showing no risk, according to maternal and paternal diagnoses of seven types of mental disorders.

Item response theory analysis of self-reported social-emotional learning competencies in an Australian population cohort aged 11 years.

Childhood social and emotional competencies are recognized as teachable skills affecting well-being and developmental outcomes across the life span. This study sought to develop and validate a brief self-report measure of social-emotional competencies in middle childhood. The study used items from the administered to a representative subsample of the cohort, comprising sixth grade students ( = 26,837; aged 11-12 years) attending primary school in New South Wales, Australia.

Measurement invariance across age, gender, ethnicity, and psychopathology of the Psychotic-Like Experiences Questionnaire for Children in a community sample.

Objectives: The current study aimed to assess the measurement invariance of the 9-item self-report Psychotic-Like Experiences Questionnaire for Children (PLEQ-C) across various demographic (age, gender, ethnicity) and psychopathology profiles in a community sample of children.

Methods: Children aged 9-11 years (n = 613; M age = 10.4 years [SD = 0.

Out-of-home care characteristics associated with childhood educational underachievement, mental disorder, and police contacts in an Australian population sample.

Background: Children in out-of-home care (OOHC) are generally at increased risk of health and social adversities compared to their peers. However, the experiences of children in OOHC are not uniform and their associated health and social indices may vary in relation to characteristics of OOHC placements and child protection contact.

Objective: To examine associations between a range of characteristics of OOHC placements and child protection contact (e.

Relationships between parental mental illness and/or offending and offspring contact with the police in childhood: Findings from a longitudinal record-linkage study.

Background: Parental offending and mental illness are associated with an increased risk of criminal behaviour in offspring during adolescence and adulthood, but the impact of such problems on younger children, including children's experiences of victimisation, is less well known.

Aim: To investigate the associations between parental offending and mental illness recorded prior to their offspring's age of 5 years and their offspring's contact with police as a 'person of interest', 'victim' or 'witness' between ages 5 and 13 years.

Methods: Our sample consisted of 72,771 children and their parents drawn from the New South Wales Child Development Study, an Australian longitudinal population-based record linkage study.

Increased likelihood of distressing and functionally impairing psychotic-like experiences among children with co-occurring internalising and externalising problems.

Among children with psychotic-like experiences (PLEs), the presence of co-occurring psychopathology may distinguish children's self-report of clinically significant experiences (i.e., PLEs that are distressing and/or impairing of daily functioning) from reports of more benign experiences.

Pathways from developmental vulnerabilities in early childhood to schizotypy in middle childhood.

Objectives: Childhood disturbances in social, emotional, language, motor and cognitive functioning, and schizotypy have each been implicated as precursors of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. We investigated whether relationships between early childhood developmental vulnerabilities and childhood schizotypy are mediated by educational underachievement in middle childhood.

Methods: Participants were members of a large Australian (n = 19,216) population cohort followed longitudinally.

Academic resilience from school entry to third grade: Child, parenting, and school factors associated with closing competency gaps.

There is substantial evidence confirming that children who begin school with strong developmental skills tend to maintain positive academic trajectories across the elementary school years. Much less is known about children who begin school with poorer developmental competencies yet go on to achieve academically on par with, or above, their initially more competent peers, demonstrating academic resilience. This study used a large population dataset, the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (n = 2,118) to identify children who demonstrated academic resilience between school entry and third grade, and the child, parenting, and school characteristics associated with this resilience.

Substance use and psychotic-like experiences in young people: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

This study aimed to systematically review and synthesise the available evidence on the prevalence and associations between psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) and substance use in children and adolescents aged ⩽17 years, prior to the typical age of development of prodromal symptoms of psychosis. As substance use has been associated with earlier age of psychosis onset and more severe illness, identifying risk processes in the premorbid phase of the illness may offer opportunities to prevent the development of prodromal symptoms and psychotic illness. MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and CINAHL databases were searched for chart review, case-control, cohort, twin, and cross-sectional studies.

Cumulative Environmental Risk in Early Life: Associations With Schizotypy in Childhood.

Background And Hypothesis: Psychotic disorders are associated with a growing number of recognized environmental exposures. Cumulative exposure to multiple environmental risk factors in childhood may contribute to the development of different patterns of schizotypy evident in early life. Hypotheses were that distinct profiles of schizotypy would have differential associations with a cumulative score of environmental risk factors.

Early childhood developmental vulnerability associated with parental mental disorder comorbidity.

Objectives: Parental mental health has a profound influence on the mental health and well-being of their offspring. With comorbid mental disorders generally the rule rather than the exception, increased knowledge of the impact of parental mental disorder on early child development may facilitate improved targeting and delivery of early intervention for vulnerable offspring.

Methods: Participants were 66,154 children and their parents in the New South Wales Child Development Study - a prospective, longitudinal, record-linkage study of a population cohort of children born in NSW between 2002 and 2004.

Cumulative environmental risk in early life is associated with mental disorders in childhood.

Background: No single environmental factor is a necessary or sufficient cause of mental disorder; multifactorial and transdiagnostic approaches are needed to understand the impact of the environment on the development of mental disorders across the life course.

Method: Using linked multi-agency administrative data for 71 932 children from the New South Wales Child Developmental Study, using logistic regression, we examined associations between 16 environmental risk factors in early life (prenatal period to <6 years of age) and later diagnoses of mental disorder recorded in health service data (from age 6 to 13 years), both individually and summed as an environmental risk score (ERS).

Results: The ERS was associated with all types of mental disorder diagnoses in a dose-response fashion, such that 2.

Early developmental vulnerabilities following exposure to domestic violence and abuse: Findings from an Australian population cohort record linkage study.

Early life exposure to Domestic Violence and Abuse (DVA) is associated with poor psychosocial and cognitive development in childhood. However, most prior research uses mother-reported involvement in DVA as a proxy indicator of child exposure; studies using direct measures of child exposure to DVA are scarce, especially among representative population-based samples. We address this gap by using longitudinal, population-based data from an Australian record linkage study of children to examine the associations between early life exposure to DVA and early childhood developmental vulnerability.