Depression or Anxiety

Psychiatric disorders in children and adolescents arecommon and can result in significant interference in development, impairment in quality of life, and substantial morbidity and mortality. The prevalence of major depres-sive disorder is approximately 2 % in children and 4–8% in adolescents, with a cumulative incidence of approxi-mately 20 % by age 18 years in community samples.1-3 Prevalence rates of anxiety disorders have been reported4,5 to be 3 – 4 % for generalized anxiety disorder and separa-tion anxiety disorder for adolescents. The use of psychotropic medications in this population has increased greatly in recent years. From 1990 to 1995, data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey3 documented over 4.5 million visits with the prescribing of an antidepressant for children and adolescents aged 5–18 years. Other research6 indicates that children aged 6–1