Special Section on Mental Health Issues in Children and AdolescentsDo Pediatricians Think They Are Responsible for Identification and Management of Child Mental Health Problems? Results of the AAP Periodic Survey
Section snippets
Design/Methods
Data were obtained from the 59th Periodic Survey conducted by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which represents approximately 80% of pediatricians in the United States. At the time of the survey, there were 50 818 nonretired US members. The survey was pretested and approved by the AAP Institutional Review Board before the initial mailing. Details of the survey have been reported elsewhere.22
Results
Among the1294 members who had completed training, 57% responded (N = 745). The final multivariable logistic regression model estimating the probability of response included age group (≥40 vs <40), gender, and the 2-way interaction between age and gender. Sample weights were created and rescaled such that the mean was unity and the sum is equal to the analytic sample size: males <40 years of age: 1.28; males ≥40 years of age: 1.10; females <40 years of age: 0.93; females ≥40 years of age: 0.87.
Discussion
This study demonstrates a gap between pediatricians' perceived responsibilities for identification and for treatment/management of 7 important mental health conditions. This gap has been previously reported in a study by Olson and colleagues23 in assessing pediatrician's attitudes and behaviors toward their patients with depression. In both studies, ∼90% thought they should be responsible for identification, whereas 25% to 27% thought that it was their responsibility to treat, suggesting that
Acknowledgments
Supported in part by and reviewed by the American Academy of Pediatrics; funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
References (33)
- et al.
Mental health in pediatric settings. Distribution of disorders and factors related to service use
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(2000) - et al.
Correlates of behavioral care management strategies used by primary care pediatric providers
Ambul Pediatr
(2007) - et al.
Primary care pediatricians' roles and perceived responsibilities in the identification and management of depression in children and adolescents
Ambul Pediatr
(2001) - et al.
National trends in the use of psychotropic medications by children
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(2002) - et al.
The continuing shortage of child and adolescent psychiatrists
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(2006) - et al.
Changing physician behavior to improve disease prevention
Prev Med
(1994) Mental Health: A Report to the Surgeon General
(2000)- et al.
Emotional, developmental, and behavioral health of american children and their families: a report from the 2003 National Survey of Children's Health
Pediatrics
(2006) - et al.
Increasing identification of psychosocial problems: 1979–1996
Pediatrics
(2000) American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on the Family. Family pediatrics: report of the Task Force on the Family
Pediatrics
(2003)
Lifetime prevalence and age-of-onset distributions of DSM-IV disorders in the national comorbidity survey replication
Arch Gen Psychiatry
Diagnosis and treatment of behavioral health disorders in pediatric practice
Pediatrics
The de facto US mental health services system: a public perspective
Arch Gen Psychiatry
Cited by (164)
Barriers to Identifying Learning Disabilities: A Qualitative Study of Clinicians and Educators
2023, Academic PediatricsIntegrating Behavioral Health in Primary Care: Lessons from Interdisciplinary Collaboration in School Mental Health
2022, Pediatric Clinics of North AmericaScreening Adolescents for Sensitive Health Topics in Primary Care: A Scoping Review
2022, Journal of Adolescent HealthCitation Excerpt :For example, patients presenting with risk factors perceived as being pertinent to a given health topic (e.g., report of sexually active peers, “warning signs”) were more likely to be screened than peers who were perceived as being at lower risk (n = 5) [6,46,62,63]. There were also documented disparities in screening (n = 5) based on patient race/ethnicity [54,59], age [46], and gender [21]. For instance, Meredith et al. (2018) [62] found that while older adolescent age was associated with higher odds of screening for substance use, adolescents who identified as Black, Hispanic, Multiracial, or other non-White race/ethnicity had lower odds of being screened.
Health Psychology in Primary Care
2022, Comprehensive Clinical Psychology, Second Edition
Presented in part at the Pediatric Academic Societies' Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, May 2005.
The views herein are of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Annie E. Casey Foundation or the American Academy of Pediatrics.