Antidepressant Therapy in Children and Adolescents

TL;DRAbstract

In this chapter, we present an overview of antidepressant pharmacotherapy for depressive disorders in children and adolescents. Our intended audience is the generalist, who may be called on to treat older adolescents for whom the demarcation between adulthood and adolescence may not be clear-cut. From the vantage point of the clinical psychopharmacologist who treats adults, several areas require special attention in adolescents, including (a) recognition, diagnosis, and differential diagnosis; (b) selection of the psychosocial intervention used with pharmacotherapy; (c) dosing strategies based on pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics; (d) pharmacotherapy in the context of common comorbid conditions; and (e) duration of antidepressant therapy. One of the most startling differences between the fields of adult and childhood antidepressant therapy is the relative paucity of research data from clinical trials in children that can be used to make informed clinical decisions.

Chat with Paper

AI Agents for this Paper