ABSTRACT
In America, between 6 and 9 million pediatric patients have serious mental and emotional illnesses.1,2 At any given time, approximately 20 percent of children have mental disorders with at least mild functional impairment;3 10-13 percent of children and adolescents have symptoms of serious mental illness, and 5-9 percent experience extreme emotional disturbance and functional impairment.4
Although the use of psychotropic medications in children and adolescents has been less frequent than in adult patients, there has been a dramatic increase in pediatric psychotropic prescriptions over the past several decades.5-7 This medication practice has been accompanied by relatively limited evidence-based data, however, the need to make prescribing decisions has preceded the information on which we would like to depend. Many of the principles stated elsewhere in this book also apply to pediatric patients, although there are a number of specific facts and techniques that are uniquely useful in child and adolescent psychopharmacological practice. This chapter will highlight those elements.
