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Monitoring and Measurement in Child and Adolescent Mental Health

A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Mental Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 February 2023) | Viewed by 12037

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
1. Evidence-Based Practice Unit, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK
2. Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, London N1 9JH, UK
Interests: child and adolescent; mental health; empowerment; routine outcome monitoring; mental health measurement

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Guest Editor
Child Outcomes Research Consortium, Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, London NW3 5SU, UK
Interests: child and adolescent; mental health; goal setting; goal tracking; routine outcome monitoring

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Over half of young people will experience mental health difficulties during childhood and adolescence. Mental health problems (e.g., depression, anxiety) are one of the leading causes of illness or disability for young people worldwide. Mental health problems in young people have been exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. To effectively support young people’s mental health—through self-care, the community, school, or specialist services—we need to be able to monitor and measure child and adolescent mental health. We are calling for papers for a Special Issue on Monitoring and Measurement in Child and Adolescent Mental Health. Primary and secondary (e.g., meta-analysis) research studies are welcome. Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

  • Evidence on psychometrically robust and feasible measures that are meaningful to children, adolescents and the network around them, as monitoring mental health requires measures that fulfill these needs;
  • There is also a need for evidence on the different types of measures routinely used in child and adolescent mental health services;
  • Mental health is multifaceted and there is a need for evidence on different types of measures, from standardized (e.g., normed) to idiographic (e.g., personalized) ones;
  • A greater understanding of the relevance, meaningfulness, and appropriateness of child and adolescent mental health measures for young people from minoritized ethnic groups;
  • Evidence on the use of mental health and well-being measures in child and adolescent mental health settings, and experiences of their use to inform treatment and as decision-making tools.

Dr. Julian Edbrooke-Childs
Dr. Jenna Jacob
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • child and youth
  • mental health
  • routine outcome monitoring
  • assessment measurement
  • outcome measurement
  • feedback

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Editorial

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4 pages, 280 KiB  
Editorial
Monitoring and Measurement in Child and Adolescent Mental Health: It’s about More than Just Symptoms
by Jenna Jacob and Julian Edbrooke-Childs
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(8), 4616; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19084616 - 12 Apr 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2099
Abstract
Routine outcome monitoring (ROM) provides information to practitioners and others providing healthcare support to demonstrate the impact of interventions and for service evaluation [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Monitoring and Measurement in Child and Adolescent Mental Health)

Research

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13 pages, 1220 KiB  
Article
Key Features of a Multi-Disciplinary Hospital-Based Rehabilitation Program for Children and Adolescents with Moderate to Severe Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome ME/CFS
by Sonya Hiremath, Montserrat Doukrou, Halina Flannery, Catherine Carey, Anna Gregorowski, Joseph Ward, Dougal Hargreaves and Terry Yvonne Segal
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(20), 13608; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192013608 - 20 Oct 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2378
Abstract
Purpose of the study: There is limited published data on treatment or outcomes of children and young people (CYP) with moderate or severe Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). Here, we describe outcomes of moderate and severe ME/CFS in CYP treated in a tertiary [...] Read more.
Purpose of the study: There is limited published data on treatment or outcomes of children and young people (CYP) with moderate or severe Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). Here, we describe outcomes of moderate and severe ME/CFS in CYP treated in a tertiary adolescent service. This information is useful when planning services for CYP and families affected by moderate/severe ME/CFS and to guide future management trials and commissioning decisions. Study Design: A retrospective review was conducted of medical records of the 27 CYP who received ward-based treatment in 2015. Notes were retrospectively reviewed to assess progress in four markers of wellbeing over the period of treatment: (i) mobility, (ii) education, (iii) sleep and (iv) involvement in social/recreational activities. Results: A total of 23/27 (85%) showed improvement in one or more domains over their period of ward-based therapy. 19/27 (70%) of patients showed improvement in physical ability. In 15/23 patients (65%), there was an improvement in ability to access education, in 12/24 (50%) sleep improved, and 16/27 (59%) demonstrated an improvement in socialising/ability perform recreational activities. Conclusion/Implications: A multidisciplinary hospital-based rehabilitation programme for moderate and severe ME/CFS was associated with improvement in at least one area of wellbeing in 85% of the CYP we reviewed. These data may be used as a baseline to evaluate the impact of other models of delivering care for this patient group. It may be useful when considering other groups such as those affected by Post-COVID Syndrome. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Monitoring and Measurement in Child and Adolescent Mental Health)
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14 pages, 375 KiB  
Article
Readability of Commonly Used Quality of Life Outcome Measures for Youth Self-Report
by Karolin R. Krause, Jenna Jacob, Peter Szatmari and Daniel Hayes
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(15), 9555; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19159555 - 03 Aug 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2258
Abstract
Self-report measures are central in capturing young people’s perspectives on mental health concerns and treatment outcomes. For children and adolescents to complete such measures meaningfully and independently, the reading difficulty must match their reading ability. Prior research suggests a frequent mismatch for mental [...] Read more.
Self-report measures are central in capturing young people’s perspectives on mental health concerns and treatment outcomes. For children and adolescents to complete such measures meaningfully and independently, the reading difficulty must match their reading ability. Prior research suggests a frequent mismatch for mental health symptom measures. Similar analyses are lacking for measures of Quality of Life (QoL). We analysed the readability of 13 commonly used QoL self-report measures for children and adolescents aged 6 to 18 years by computing five readability formulas and a mean reading age across formulas. Across measures, the mean reading age for item sets was 10.7 years (SD = 1.2). For almost two-thirds of the questionnaires, the required reading age exceeded the minimum age of the target group by at least one year, with an average discrepancy of 3.0 years (SD = 1.2). Questionnaires with matching reading ages primarily targeted adolescents. Our study suggests a frequent mismatch between the reading difficulty of QoL self-report measures for pre-adolescent children and this group’s expected reading ability. Such discrepancies risk undermining the validity of measurement, especially where children also have learning or attention difficulties. Readability should be critically considered in measure development, as one aspect of the content validity of self-report measures for youth. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Monitoring and Measurement in Child and Adolescent Mental Health)
15 pages, 387 KiB  
Article
Therapists’ Emotional Responses in Individual Therapy with Depressed Adolescents: An Evaluation of the Data Structure of the Feeling-Word Checklist—28
by Pernille Brøsholen, Randi Ulberg, Hanne-Sofie Johnsen Dahl and Agneta Thorén
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(15), 9496; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19159496 - 02 Aug 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1582
Abstract
Countertransference (CT) responses during therapy sessions can be understood as the therapist’s emotional reactions towards the patient. Within adolescents’ psychotherapy, little is known about the effects of the therapists’ feelings on treatment outcome. The Feeling-Word Checklist—28 (FWC-28) is a self-report questionnaire designed to [...] Read more.
Countertransference (CT) responses during therapy sessions can be understood as the therapist’s emotional reactions towards the patient. Within adolescents’ psychotherapy, little is known about the effects of the therapists’ feelings on treatment outcome. The Feeling-Word Checklist—28 (FWC-28) is a self-report questionnaire designed to evaluate the therapist’s in-session feelings during therapy with younger patients. The aim of the study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the clinician-rated FWC-28 and explore the associations between the CT-subscales and therapeutic alliance. Data were collected from a randomized controlled trial in which 11 therapists specialized in child and adolescent psychotherapy treated 16- to 18-year-old patients (n = 62) with major depressive disorder in outpatient clinics. The patients received psychodynamic psychotherapy treatment over 28 sessions. Therapists rated their emotional responses towards their patients on FWC-28 after sessions 3, 12, 20, and 28. Principal component analysis (PCA) with oblique rotation was performed to find clinically meaningful subscales of the FWC-28. PCA revealed four clinically meaningful components termed as follows: inadequate, confident, motherly, and disengaged. The psychometric properties of the FWC and the reliability of the CT subscales measured with Cronbach’s alpha were acceptable. The therapist-reported alliance showed significant and clinically meaningful correlations with all CT-subscales. Our findings indicate that the checklist is adequate for clinical practice and countertransference research in adolescents’ psychotherapy. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Monitoring and Measurement in Child and Adolescent Mental Health)

Other

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7 pages, 304 KiB  
Opinion
Working with Goals and Trauma in Youth Mental Health
by Duncan Law
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(17), 11048; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191711048 - 03 Sep 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1735
Abstract
There is good evidence of the value of working with goals in youth mental health services and settings. As such, goal-oriented practice is seen as a core component of good mental health interventions. Yet, there is debate among clinicians and academics about whether [...] Read more.
There is good evidence of the value of working with goals in youth mental health services and settings. As such, goal-oriented practice is seen as a core component of good mental health interventions. Yet, there is debate among clinicians and academics about whether working with goals is a valid approach with clients who have experienced trauma. In this paper, I will explore the impacts of trauma and argue that working with goals, including the use of tools that facilitate these practices, such as the Goal-Based Outcome (GBO) tool, is as vital when working in trauma-informed interventions, as with any other mode of practice or client group. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Monitoring and Measurement in Child and Adolescent Mental Health)
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