ADHD

Deliberate self-harm (DSH) is a behavior in which a person commits an act with the purpose of physically harming himself or herself with or without a real intent of suicide.

The NIMH Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) project raises many questions about DSM-5 and future DSMs.

In cases of shared care, 90862 is often the only reimbursable CPT code available to the psychiatrist.

On January 24, Dr Ronald Pies posted a thoughtful piece titled “Who Can Forgive Jared Loughner?” which advocates the importance of relinquishing hatred in cases like the ones in Tucson and transforming “our revulsion and rage into something higher and nobler.”

Major mood disorders have been associated with increased suicidal behavior. This is especially true in patients with a mixed, manic-depressive, or dysphoric-agitated state.

Expansion of age-appropriate developmental psycho-therapeutic services must become a top public health priority to make these treatments more widely available to young children and to capture the potential greater benefit of the earliest possible intervention for mental disorders.

Is ADHD in a child foreshadowed by ADHD in other family members? Have acute-phase treatments for major depression been found to be effective in children and teens? These questions and more in this quiz.

Which scales can help diagnose ADHD in adults? Are CT, PET, EEG, and MRI reliable diagnostic tools for ADHD? These questions and more in this week's quiz.

This table provides links to many valuable resources for child and adolescent psychiatry. A list of Web sites, books, organizations, and pivotal articles on ADHD and other topics.

Clinicians who treat children with ADHD face a challenging conundrum. Although our understanding of ADHD and its evidence-based treatments has increased significantly in recent years, the number of successful treatment outcomes has not.

Autism is demanding increased attention by professional and lay audiences; prevalence seems to be increasing. There are differing opinions about whether the increase is due to greater recognition and reporting, diagnostic expansion and substitution, or increasing acceptability.

This is both an exciting and challenging time to be a child and adolescent psychiatrist. New findings are changing our knowledge of childhood psychopathology. This Special Report discusses current developments in diagnosis, treatments, and problems for children and adolescents.

A 3-year study involving over 3,000 patients used motivational interviewing to counsel adolescents about staying away from potentially violent and alcohol-related situations. It was found that these brief sessions “reduced by half the chances that teenagers would experience peer violence or problems due to drinking.”

What's the annual nonfatal violent crime rate against Psychiatrists? How often is ADHD in adults correctly diagnosed? These questions and more from the July 2010 issue of Psychiatric Times.

The discipline of evolutionary psychology views modern human behaviors as products of natural selection that acted on the psychological traits of our ancestors. A subdiscipline, evolutionary psychiatry, tries to find evolutionary explanations for mental disorders.

Houston, we have a problem. There is a critical shortage of psychiatrists. And the problem is not in Houston alone-it includes the entire state of Texas, and every other state in the union (Mid-town Manhattan, Boston’s Beacon Hill, and Sacramento Street in San Francisco might be exceptions).

Adolescents with ADHD, conduct disorder, or who smoke cigarettes are less likely to finish high school on time and more likely to drop out altogether, researchers at the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine have found.

ADHD may be more prevalent than we know, and it may be taking a toll on marriage. Findings suggest that many adults with the disorder never received a diagnosis as children.

As many as 80% of patients who use herbal preparations and other natural products regard these therapies as the primary treatment of their ADHD symptoms.

When I was an undergraduate studying molecular biology in the early 1990s when the Human Genome Project had just begun, my required coursework included several lectures on the ethical implications of sequencing, understanding, and ultimately being able to manipulate the “code of life.”

A recent meta-analysis showed that diagnoses generated from clinical evaluations often do not agree with the results of structured and semistructured interviews-together called standardized diagnostic interviews (SDIs).

A vital consideration we learn in medicine is that continuing life support for a moribund patient past a certain point is harmful to the lives of all concerned.

Houston, we have a problem. There is a critical shortage of psychiatrists.

The recently posted criteria sets for DSM5 are a mess. The writing is unclear, inconsistent, and imprecise. Unless they are edited and drastically improved, any field testing based on them will be a waste of time, effort, and money- and DSM5 may not be usable.

Sometimes you spot a serious problem and figure out a very well-intended solution, only to discover eventually that your solution created as much trouble as the original problem. The workers on DSM5 have spotted an enormously worrying problem-the wild overdiagnosis of childhood bipolar disorder (BD) which has led to a massive increase in the use of antipsychotic and mood stabilizing medications in children and teenagers.

Avoid Surprises and Unintended Consequences

Epidemiological studies show that, 4% to 5% of the general population have severe ADHD. Of this number, half have a comorbid substance use disorder. The aim of this article is to help physicians understand and manage this challenging combination of comorbidities.

Oregon’s legislature has passed the bill: should the governor sign it? Most opinions on this issue are strong, and many have reached the point of invective. Even such a cool mind as Ronald Pies' has weighed in with an emotionally charged editorial.1 To speak in favor when so many are opposed seems only to invite more affective discharge. On the other hand, editorial views thus far may be moving us toward extremes on an issue that is highly complex. Perhaps a dialectic approach -– what value can we find in an opposing view? -- would be wise at this point. In that spirit, here are 4 considerations that I hope will be useful.

I have been closely following the discussions of the proposed DSM5 in Psychiatric Times. Your publication of this discourse is a significant contribution to our field. As a research psychiatrist who has published over 150 peer-reviewed papers, I strongly support Allen Frances’ emphasis on the importance of continuity in diagnostic criteria for DSM5.

New Insights Into Diagnosis, Comorbidities, and Treatment Approaches