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Are We Improving Mental Health Care or Drugging Our Kids?

Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2001;155:545.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

THE STUDY by Rushton and Whitmire¹ provides further evidence of a continuous increase in the use of both stimulant medications and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in the treatment of children. To those who believe that we are overly and unnecessarily medicating children, the results support their concern. However, for those who feel that services for children are inadequate, the article reflects some improvement in the identification and treatment of children with mental illness.

Certain aspects of these disparate views are likely true. We have made significant progress in determining the efficacy of psychotropic medications in the treatment of childhood mental illness. As the authors point out, there is reasonable evidence for the efficacy of stimulant medications in the treatment of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)² and growing evidence for the efficacy of SSRIs.³ Further studies are needed because there is inadequate information about their use in preschoolers and adolescents . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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