Depression
Preschoolers and depression
The study, which appears in the August issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, is sure to raise eyebrows among people who question if children that young are emotionally mature enough to be depressed. The study's authors say that despite skepticism, a growing body of research suggests that depression does exist among preschoolers and they launched the study to better understand it.
The authors studied 306 children 3 to 6 years old, including 75 of them diagnosed with depression, and evaluated them for up to two years. Preschoolers with depression at the beginning of the study were four times more likely to have depression 12 or 24 months later than children who were not depressed at the study's start.
Researchers found depression was more common in children whose mothers were depressed and those who had experienced a traumatic event. The study underscores the importance of diagnosing depression as early as preschool, the authors say. But the study didn't research treating children so young with medication, for instance, which has been controversial. The authors say more study is needed in this area.
Source: Baltimore Sun- Post a Comment
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- 08/09/09
- Posted by AubreyJ
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