Leading articles
Conduct disorder
Conduct disorders and us: from heart sink to heart warming?
Correspondence to:
Daphne V Keen, Room 2.35, Clare House, St Georges Healthcare NHS Trust, Blackshaw Road, London SW17 0QT, UK; daphne.keen@stgeorges.nhs.uk
Accepted 10 May 2007
The "Child in Mind" initiative and the appointment of a new specialist consultant in child mental health offer hope for the future
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
The recent NICE guidance on conduct disorders (CDs)1 places paediatricians centre stage in the assessment process. With behavioural disorders contributing to 25–30% of some paediatricians caseloads,2 it is very gratifying to see our role appropriately recognised. This is not always the case. Both here and abroad, paediatricians complain that, despite being an integral part of child mental health service provision, at a national level we often seem invisible.3
Now, for a question: which clinical conditions are your most difficult? Paediatricians, probably universally, most often cite CDs.4 A UK survey of trainees child mental health training requirements, conducted in 2006, sent back a very strong message of feeling under-prepared, and over 90% of respondents said they needed more training, particularly in behavioural disorders (M Davie, personal communication), a perception also shared by recently appointed consultants.5
A resolution to this problem will hopefully flow from two major College initiatives: the
Relevant Article
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A brief digest of the October issue
Arch. Dis. Child. 2007 92: e10.[Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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