Objective: Previous studies at child and youth mental health services (CYMHS) suggest that children with ADHD have poorer outcomes compared to those with other diagnoses. This study investigates... Show moreObjective: Previous studies at child and youth mental health services (CYMHS) suggest that children with ADHD have poorer outcomes compared to those with other diagnoses. This study investigates this in more detail. Methods: Children with ADHD were compared to those with ASD and those with emotional disorders, on routinely collected outcomes at CYMHS in Australia (N = 2,513) and the Netherlands (N = 844). Results: Where the emotional disorders group reached a similar level of emotional symptoms at the end-of-treatment as the ADHD and ASD groups, the latter two groups still had higher scores on ADHD and ASD symptoms (attention and peer problems). The poorer outcomes were mainly explained by higher severity at baseline. In Australia, an ADHD and/or ASD diagnosis also independently contributed to worse outcomes. Conclusion: Those with neurodevelopmental disorders within both countries had poorer outcomes than those with emotional disorders. Services should aim to optimize treatment to ensure best possible outcomes. Show less
Roest, S.L.; Siebelink, B.M.; Ewijk, H. van; Vermeiren, R.R.J.M.; Middeldorp, C.M.; Lans, R.M. van der 2021
Routine outcome measurement (ROM) data offer unique opportunities to study treatment outcomes in clinical practice, and can help to assess the real-world impact of mental health services for... Show moreRoutine outcome measurement (ROM) data offer unique opportunities to study treatment outcomes in clinical practice, and can help to assess the real-world impact of mental health services for children and adolescents (youth). This is illustrated by studies using naturalistic data from specialist child and adolescent mental healthcare services (CAMHS), showing the proportion of patients with reliable improvement, recovery or deterioration (Burgess et al., 2015; Wolpert et al., 2016), and revealing specific subgroups of patients with greater risk of poor outcome (Garralda et al., 2000; Lundh et al., 2013; Murphy et al., 2015; Edbrooke-Childs et al., 2017). Naturalistic data are therefore undeniably necessary in addition to data derived from randomised clinical trials, which often have limited generalisability due to strict selection criteria (Rothwell, 2005; Van Noorden et al., 2014). Show less
