Introduction: epidemiology of child and adolescent mental disorders.
Introduction: epidemiology of child and adolescent mental disorders.
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简介：儿童和青少年精神障碍的流行病学。
DOI：
10.1097/00004583-199607000-00010
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发表时间：
1996
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Dulcan,MK
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Dulcan,MK
本节的四篇文章介绍了美国国家心理健康研究所 (NIMH) 资助的儿童和青少年精神障碍流行病学方法 (MECA) 研究的一些核心发现。为什么该杂志的读者应该对儿童精神病流行病学的另一个特别部分感兴趣？因为“精神流行病学很重要”（Freedman，1984），不仅仅是通过统计不同类别的人数或对重测可靠性进行详细研究，最重要的是通过增进我们对精神疾病的原因、治疗和自然组织学的理解，为有关精神科服务的设计和资助的公共政策提供信息，甚至影响临床培训（Rae Grant等，1989）。评估精神卫生服务时必须着眼于改善，无论是在专业精神病学部门还是在儿科、社会服务或教育机构提供。没有精确的测量工具，就不可能取得进展。临床直觉和轶事经验虽然有用，但并不能让我们了解全局。仅从精神病患者收集的数据无法代表那些无法前往我们办公室和医院的儿童和青少年。社区样本和临床样本之间的危险因素、合并症、自然史和治疗反应可能有所不同。不同人群之间疾病的发生率、严重程度或特征的差异为精神病理学的病因学提供了线索（Earls，1982；
The four articles in this section present some of the core findings ofthe National Institute ofMental Health (NIMH)-funded Methods for the Epidemiology of Child and Adolescent Mental Disorders (MECA) Study. Why should the readers of the Journal be interested in another special section on child psychiatric epidemiology? Because" psychiatric epidemiology counts"(Freedman, 1984), not just by tallying up numbers of persons in different categories or doing detailed studies of test-retest reliability, but most importantly by advancing our understanding ofthe causes, treatment, and natural histoty of psychiatric disorders, informing public policy regarding the design and funding of psychiatric services, and even influencing clinical training (Rae Grant et al., 1989). Mental health services must be evaluated with an eye toward improvement, whether they are provided in the specialty psychiatric sector or in pediatric, social service, or educational settings. Without accurate measurement tools, no progress can be made. Clinical intuition and anecdotal experience, as useful as they are, do not give us the big picture. Data gathered only from psychiatric patients fail to represent those children and adolescents who do not find their way to our offices and hospitals. Risk factors, comorbidity, natural history, and response to treatment may differ between community and clinic samples. Differences in rates, severity, or characteristics ofdisorders among subgroups ofthe population provide clues to the etiology of psychopathology (Earls, 1982;