Publications by authors named "Pierre C M Herpers"

Background: Adolescents with acute psychiatric disorders are typically treated with long-term clinical admission. However, long term admission may be associated with a variety of negative outcomes. This pilot study presents a new model of care, that is, the combined application of intensive home treatment and the possibility of short term stay at a psychiatric high & intensive care.

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Article Synopsis
  • Adolescents with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and conduct disorder (CD) show impaired emotional processing compared to typically developing individuals (TDI), indicating they struggle with detecting emotional valence in images.
  • Both clinical groups (ODD/CD and autism spectrum disorder) performed worse than TDIs on emotional tasks; however, only TDIs had significant difficulty distinguishing between positive and neutral images.
  • Higher levels of callous-unemotional traits in youths with ODD/CD and ASD were associated with poorer emotional detection, suggesting a potential link between these traits and the diminished ability to process positive stimuli.
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Callous-unemotional (CU) traits have mainly been studied in relation to conduct disorder (CD), but can also occur in other disorder groups. However, it is unclear whether there is a clinically relevant cut-off value of levels of CU traits in predicting reduced quality of life (QoL) and clinical symptoms, and whether CU traits better fit a categorical (taxonic) or dimensional model. Parents of 979 youths referred to a child and adolescent psychiatric clinic rated their child's CU traits on the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional traits (ICU), QoL on the Kidscreen-27, and clinical symptoms on the Child Behavior Checklist.

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Research regarding callous-unemotional (CU) traits in non-conduct disorder (CD) diagnoses is sparse. We investigated the presence of high CU traits and their associations with quality of life (QoL) in a clinically referred sample of youths with non-CD diagnoses. Parents of 1018 children referred to a child and adolescent psychiatric clinic and rated their child's CU traits and QoL.

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Objective: To investigate whether a new intensive home treatment (IHT) model for adolescents with psychiatric problems is more effective or more efficient than previous treatment methods involving long-term clinical admission.

Design: Descriptive, retrospective study.

Method: The previous treatment model for adolescents in crisis consisted of clinical admission for 6 months or longer.

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It is unclear whether the concepts and findings of the underlying neurobiology of adult psychopathy apply to youths as well. If so, a life span approach to treatment should be taken. Because youths' brains are still developing, interventions at an early age may be far more effective in the long run.

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Purpose: Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are currently viewed as the defining signs and symptoms of juvenile psychopathy. It is unclear, however, whether CU traits have validity only in the context of conduct disorder (CD) as proposed by Frick and Moffitt (A proposal to the DSM-V childhood disorders and the ADHD and disruptive behavior disorders work groups to include a specifier to the diagnosis of conduct disorder based on the presence of callous-unemotional traits, American Psychiatric Association, Washington, DC, 2010), or also outside CD, either in combination with other forms of psychopathology or as a stand-alone construct.

Methods: The current review systematically studied the existent literature on CU traits in juveniles to examine their validity inside and outside CD according to the framework regarding the validity of a psychiatric diagnosis provided by Robins and Guze (Am J Psychiatry 126:983-987, 1970).

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