ABSTRACT
Children and adolescents can develop a syndrome of depression that shares many similarities with the adult equivalent. The syndrome of depression is a pervasive mood disorder, associated with significant suffering or impairment of functioning. Worldwide, depressive disorder affects 1–6% of adolescents. Bipolar disorder is less common than this, but there is continuing debate about when it is appropriate to make the diagnosis in young people – in other words, how to adapt the adult definition appropriately. In addition to depressive disorder and substance misuse, other possibilities include schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, which may be difficult to distinguish in the early stages. Transatlantic differences are particularly marked in relation to the frequency of diagnosis of bipolar disorder: a European perspective is that over-diagnosis of a bipolar tendency may inappropriately encourage the use in children of the sort of medications used to treat adult bipolar disorder.
