14 DAY TRIAL // Mental conditions plaguing teenagers are often regarded by adults as being less important and serious than the ones that plague them, although that is not necessarily the case. For quite some time now, experts have been drawing attention to the fact that adolescents are living in a very stressful environment, but they have only received moderate echoes from parents and the scientific community. In a paper appearing in the latest issue of the respected Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, researchers argue that a clear distinction between teen depression and anxiety needs to be made, AlphaGalileo reports.
Oftentimes, the two are crammed together, which may lead to phsyicians prescribing the wrong kind of drugs to their young patients, and essentially cause more harm than good. The new research paper was authored by Utrecht University Langeveld Institute for the Study of Education and Development in Childhood and Adolescence researcher Dr. William W. Hale III. He argues that the differences between the two medical conditions should be taught to healthcare professionals, so that no more mix-up takes place when it comes to prescribing treatments.
In a five-year, longitudinal investigation they conducted on secondary-school adolescents, experts at the Utrecht University measured symptoms associated with either depression or anxiety yearly, throughout the study. The team indeed discovered that the two conditions were strongly related, but argue that it may prove to be a lot more useful to catalog the symptoms as two separate afflictions, rather than treating them in a block. Treatments thus prescribed, they add, could prove to be a lot more efficient than a single, general drug given without proper check-up.
Hale says that the new finds could get a lot of exposure if they are included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the Fifth Edition (DSM-V), which is to be released no later than 2012. In the revised fourth edition of the DSM (DSM-IV-TR), the form that is now in circulation, the two conditions are already classified separately, but some healthcare experts are trying to get the authors of the Manual to cram them together again for the following release. Hale and his supporters say that the current classification should be kept, and bring the new study as evidence.