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A prospective study of childhood psychopathology: independent predictors of change over three years

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Abstract

Background

Whilst the correlates of child mental health problems are well understood, less is known about factors that operate to maintain healthy or unhealthy functioning, or that contribute to change in functioning. A range of factors may be of interest here, including relatively stable characteristics of children or their environment, that may have long-lasting and enduring consequences for their mental health, along with events that prompt changes in a child’s mental state.

Methods

Children were followed up 3 years after the original survey for a sub-sample of the 1999 British Child and Adolescent Mental Health Survey (N = 2,587 children). Latent mental health ratings drew on data provided by parent, teacher, and youth versions of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire at baseline, and at follow-up. A residual scores method was used to assess change in functioning over time.

Results and conclusions

Latent mental health scores showed strong stability over time (r = 0.71) indicating the need for effective intervention with children who have impairing psychopathology, since they are unlikely to get better spontaneously. A poorer outcome was associated with: externalizing as opposed to emotional symptoms, reading difficulties; living in a single-parent or reconstituted family at baseline; and after exposure between Time 1 and Time 2 to parental separation, parental mental illness, child illness, and loss of a close friendship. All these factors could be targeted in public health or clinical interventions, particularly as predictors of change in child mental health were closely comparable across the range of initial SDQ scores, suggesting that they operated in a similar manner regardless of the initial level of (mal)adjustment.

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Acknowledgements

The original survey was commissioned by the Department of Health, Scottish Health Executive and National Assembly for Wales. We are extremely grateful to the Office for Standards in Education for allowing us access to their database for use in developing the measure of school disadvantage, and to Dr Paul Wilkinson and Dr Chris Grundy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who provided the Carstair’s Index.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Health Service Research, Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry, Universities of Exeter and Plymouth, Peninsula Medical School, St. Luke’s Campus, Heavitree Road, Exeter, EX2 2LU, UK

    Tamsin Ford

  2. MRC Social, Genetic, and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Kings College London Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK

    Stephan Collishaw

  3. Department of Health Sciences, Leicester University, Leicester, UK

    Howard Meltzer

  4. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Kings College London Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK

    Robert Goodman

Authors
  1. Tamsin Ford
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  2. Stephan Collishaw
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  3. Howard Meltzer
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  4. Robert Goodman
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tamsin Ford.

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Ford, T., Collishaw, S., Meltzer, H. et al. A prospective study of childhood psychopathology: independent predictors of change over three years. Soc Psychiat Epidemiol 42, 953–961 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-007-0272-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-007-0272-2

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