Use of Psychotropic Medications among Youth in Treatment Foster Care.

We describe the use of psychotropic medications among youth in treatment foster care (TFC). Data from 240 youth were coded to examine rates of medication use, including polypharmacy and an indicator of "questionable polypharmacy." Fifty-nine percent of youth in TFC had taken a psychotropic medication within the past two months.

Mental health service use among adolescents following participation in a randomized clinical trial for depression.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a common disorder among adolescents. The Treatment for Adolescents with Depression Study (TADS) was a randomized controlled trial to examine the efficacy of fluoxetine and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), separately and together, compared with placebo, in adolescents 12 to 17 years of age. The Survey of Outcomes Following Treatment for Adolescent Depression (SOFTAD) was designed as a naturalistic follow-up of participants in TADS.

Pre-ejection period reactivity and psychiatric comorbidity prospectively predict substance use initiation among middle-schoolers: a pilot study.

Youth with conduct problems (CPs) or depression are at high risk for early initiation of substance use, and for future substance use disorders (SUDs). Comorbid CPs and depression increase risk even further, yet understanding how these conditions interact remains elusive. One hypothesis is that altered mesolimbic dopamine function contributes to symptoms of CPs, depression, and SUDs.

Coping skills training to reduce psychosocial risk factors for medical disorders: a field trial evaluating effectiveness in multiple worksites.

Objective: To determine whether a commercial coping skills training program shown to reduce psychosocial risk factors in randomized clinical trials of patients with coronary heart disease is also effective in achieving similar improvements among stressed workers in a real world corporate setting.

Methods: Conduct an observational trial to evaluate the impact of the Williams LifeSkills Workshop on depression, social support, anxiety, and hostility in a sample of 110 employees working at multiple U.S.

Ten good reasons to consider biological processes in prevention and intervention research.

Most contemporary accounts of psychopathology acknowledge the importance of both biological and environmental influences on behavior. In developmental psychopathology, multiple etiological mechanisms for psychiatric disturbance are well recognized, including those operating at genetic, neurobiological, and environmental levels of analysis. However, neuroscientific principles are rarely considered in current approaches to prevention or intervention.

Familial and temperamental predictors of resilience in children at risk for conduct disorder and depression.

In this study, we evaluated predictors of resilience among 8- to 12-year-old children recruited from primarily low socioeconomic status neighborhoods, 117 of whom suffered from clinical levels of conduct problems and/or depression, and 63 of whom suffered from no significant symptoms. Tests of interactions were conducted between (a) paternal antisocial behavior and maternal depression and (b) several physiological indices of child temperament and emotionality in predicting (c) children's conduct problems and depression. Both internalizing and externalizing outcomes among children were associated specifically with maternal melancholic depression, and not with nonmelancholic depression.

A comparison of psychophysiological and self-report measures of BAS and BIS activation.

The behavioral approach (BAS) and behavioral inhibition (BIS) systems are central to theories of both personality and psychopathology, yet agreement on methods of assessing BAS and BIS sensitivity has yet to emerge. We compare the Carver and White (1994) BIS/BAS scales with putative physiological markers of BAS (pre-ejection period [PEP], respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA]) and BIS (electrodermal responding) reactivity during reward and extinction among 50 undergraduates. PEP, RSA, and electrodermal activity each responded strongly to one or more task conditions, but correlations with BIS/BAS scores were stronger for measures of affectivity than for any physiological marker.