Assessment and Prevention of the Early Signs of Anxiety and Depression in Children.

焦虑和抑郁是常见的心理健康问题，孩子们认为这是他们最常见的情绪问题。最近的研究表明，简单的心理治疗计划在8至14岁的儿童中有效地减少了这些问题，然而，这些问题的最早迹象是在学龄前几年发现的。因此，迫切需要对社区预防方案进行充分评估，以解决在更小的儿童中促进健全的心理健康问题。这项研究的目的是进行一项以社区为基础的计划的全面对照试验，以检测和预防内在性障碍的早期迹象(即害羞、恐惧、焦虑和抑郁)。它假设，通过在儿童小时候进行干预，目的是改善亲子互动模式，儿童将被引导向更有能力和更有弹性的生活方式前进。这项研究包括三个主要部分。首先，我们将评估教师、家长和儿童对儿童适应状况的看法的最佳测量方法的心理测量学特性和预测有效性。其次，我们将对学龄前儿童的全部队列进行跟踪调查，以测试哪种方法的组合最能预测两年后的内在性障碍。第三，我们将进行一项对照试验，从更大的队列中抽取样本，以评估简短的家长和教师培训计划对儿童适应能力的影响。这个项目的主要问题是：a)我们能否成功地识别社区学前班和6岁以下儿童中有发展内化障碍风险的儿童？B)在这一年龄段中，哪些评估指标最可靠、最有效地预测内化性障碍的发展？C)家长和教师预防计划根据内在性障碍的风险对儿童进行分层的短期和中期影响是什么？

Anxiety and depression are common mental health problems and children rate them as their most common emotional problems. Recent research has indicated that brief psychotherapy programs are effective in reducing these problems in 8 to 14 year olds, however, the earliest signs of these problems are detectable in the preschool years. Thus there is an urgent need for adequately evaluated community prevention programs to address the promotion of sound mental health in much younger children. The aim of this study is to conduct a comprehensive controlled trial of a community based programme for the detection and prevention of early signs of internalising disorders (i.e., shyness, fears and anxiety, depression). It is hypothesised that by intervening when children are young with the aim of improving parent-child interaction patterns, children will be steered towards a more competent and resilient approach to life. The study consists of three major components. First, we will evaluate the psychometric properties and predictive validity of the best available measures of teachers', parents' and children's' perceptions of the child's adjustment status. Second, we will follow-up the full cohort of preschool children to test which combination of the measures best predicts internalising disorders after 2 years. Third, we will conduct a controlled trial with a sample of the larger cohort to evaluate the effects of a brief parent and teacher training programme on children's adjustment. The major questions of this project are: a) Can we successfully identify children in a community preschool setting and under the age of 6 who are at risk of developing internalizing disorders? b) What assessment measures are the most reliable and valid predictors of the development of internalising disorders in this age group? c) What are the short-term and medium-term effects of a parent and teacher prevention program on children stratified according to risk for internalising disorders?