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Biomedical subjects

S H Goodman

Publications and source records attributed to S H Goodman.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

The effects of neonatal stress on brain development: implications for psychopathology.

Recent studies have focused on the behavioral and neurobiological sequella of exposure to early adverse events. We hypothesize that early adverse experiences result in an increased sensitivity to the effects of stress later in life and render an individual vulnerable to stress-related psychiatric disorders. This vulnerability may be mediated by persistent changes in corticotropin-releasing-factor (CRF)-containing neurons, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, and the sympathetic nervous system. We therefore present an overview of the CRF system and its role as a mediator in the development of the stress response, major depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder. The literature pertaining to behavioral and neurobiological alterations associated with exposure to early adverse life events in rodents, nonhuman primates, and humans is reviewed. We focus on animal models that precipitate depressive and anxiety symptoms while producing neuroendocrine alterations that mimic those seen in adults with those disorders. The literature integrating neurobiological and behavioral consequences of early life stress is also reviewed, focusing primarily on infants born to mothers with depression and on infants who were abused or neglected.

Adult

Relation of age of onset to the type and severity of child and adolescent conduct problems.

In a cross-sectional household sample of 9-through 17-year-old youths from 4 U.S. communities, youths with earlier ages of onset of conduct problems engaged in more conduct problems than youths with later ages of onset when current age and gender were controlled. Specifically, youths with earlier ages of onset were more likely to engage in several types of physical aggression, frequent lying, theft, and vandalism and were less likely to engage in only truancy. There also was an inverse relation between age of onset and level of functional impairment, mental health service use, and meeting diagnostic criteria for conduct disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and oppositional defiant disorder. Within the limits of cross-sectional data, these results support the hypothesis that key aspects of the heterogeneity of conduct problems among youths are related to the age of onset of conduct problems.

Adolescent

Risk for psychopathology in the children of depressed mothers: a developmental model for understanding mechanisms of transmission.

A large body of literature documents the adverse effects of maternal depression on the functioning and development of offspring. Although investigators have identified factors associated with risk for abnormal development and psychopathology in the children, little attention has been paid to the mechanisms explaining the transmission of risk from the mothers to the children. Moreover, no existing model both guides understanding of the various processes' interrelatedness and considers the role of development in explicating the manifestation of risk in the children. This article proposes a developmentally sensitive, integrative model for understanding children's risk in relation to maternal depression. Four mechanisms through which risk might be transmitted are evaluated: (a) heritability of depression; (b) innate dysfunctional neuroregulatory mechanisms; (c) exposure to negative maternal cognitions, behaviors, and affect; and (d) the stressful context of the children's lives. Three factors that might moderate this risk are considered: (a) the father's health and involvement with the child, (b) the course and timing of the mother's depression, and (c) characteristics of the child. Relevant issues are discussed, and promising directions for future research are suggested.

Child

Psychiatric comorbidity among adolescents with substance use disorders: findings from the MECA Study.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the extent to which adolescents in the community with current substance use disorders (SUD) experience co-occurring psychiatric disorders. METHOD: Diagnostic data were obtained from probability samples of 401 children and adolescents, aged 14 to 17 years, and their mothers/caretakers, who participated in the Methods for the Epidemiology of Child and Adolescent Mental Disorders (MECA) Study. RESULTS: The rates of mood and disruptive behavior disorders are much higher among adolescents with current SUD than among adolescents without SUD. Comparison with adult samples suggests that the rates of current comorbidity of SUD with psychiatric disorders are the same among adolescents as adults, and lower for lifetime disruptive disorders/antisocial personality disorder among adolescents than adults. CONCLUSIONS: The high rate of coexisting psychiatric disorders among adolescents with SUD in the community needs to be taken into account in prevention and treatment programs.

Adolescent

Depressive and disruptive disorders and mental health service utilization in children and adolescents.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the relationship of depressive and disruptive disorders with patterns of mental health services utilization in a community sample of children and adolescents. METHOD: Data were from the NIMH Methods for the Epidemiology of Child and Adolescent Mental Disorders (MECA) Study. The sample consisted of 1,285 child (ages 9-17 years) and parent/guardian pairs. Data included child psychopathology (assessed by the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children), impairment, child need and use of mental health services, and family socioeconomic status. RESULTS: After adjusting for potential confounding factors, disruptive disorder was significantly associated with children's use of mental health services, but depressive disorder was not. For school-based services, no difference was found between the 2 types of disorders. Parents perceived greater need for mental health services for children with disruptive disorders than for those with depression. Conversely, depression was more related to children's perception of mental health service need than was disruptive disorder. CONCLUSIONS: The findings highlight the need for more effective ways to identify and refer depressed children to mental health professionals, the importance of improving school-based services to meet children's needs, and the necessity to better educate parents and teachers regarding the identification of psychiatric disorders, especially depression.

Adolescent

Measurement of risk for mental disorders and competence in a psychiatric epidemiologic community survey: the National Institute of Mental Health Methods for the Epidemiology of Child and Adolescent Mental Disorders (MECA) Study.

This paper describes the implementation of the National Institute of Mental Health Methods for the Epidemiology of Child and Adolescent Mental Disorders (MECA) study's goals of measuring risk factors and competence. The emphasis is on the development and testing of the measures. Relevant constructs for measurement of risk and competence in relation to psychopathology were selected and pilot tested prior to the field trials. A structured interview was developed and field tested using lay interviewers. Using the full sample from the field trials (n = 1285 caretaker-youth pairs), sample means, standard deviations, internal consistencies, parent-youth agreement, and associations with childhood disorder were computed. Descriptive statistics reveal a range of scores and means consistent with norming samples, when available, Internal consistencies were moderate to high. Parent-youth agreement on factual items was excellent and on scales was consistent with the literature. Several strong associations were found between risk factors and disorder, although most were related to disorder in general and not specific to a diagnostic category. This instrument provides a means of obtaining data that will be useful to researchers conducting epidemiologic and clinical studies designed to contribute to the understanding of mental disorders in children and adolescents, including nosology, risk factors, context, adaptive functioning, and treatment.

Adolescent

Comparative magnetic resonance image-based evaluation of thalamotomy and pallidotomy lesion volumes.

Acute thalamotomy and pallidotomy lesion volumes based on magnetic resonance (MR) images were measured in 22 patients (11 thalamotomy and 11 pallidotomy patients). Thalamotomy inner lesion volumes (0.06 +/- 0.04 ml; thermocoagulative zone) were smaller than pallidotomy inner lesion volumes (0.14 +/- 0.08 ml) as determined using T(1)-weighted 3D-MPRAGE (1.5-mm slice spacing). Similar results were found using T(1)-weighted (6-mm slice spacing) image sets (0.09 +/- 0.05 ml, thalamotomy; 0.13 +/- 0.05 ml, pallidotomy). No differences were found when comparing thalamic or pallidal inner lesion volumes when the comparison was based on T(2) weighted images. Thalamotomy total lesion volumes (thermocoagulative and surrounding edematous zones) were less than pallidotomy total lesion volumes independent of the MR protocol. The difference in thalamotomy and pallidotomy lesion volumes is most likely based on the distance between each discrete lesion placed along the lesioning tracts. In 7 of 11 thalamotomies, this distance was 1 mm with the remaining having 2 mm between each discrete lesion. All pallidotomy discrete lesions were 2 mm apart. More overlap between discrete lesioning sites for thalamotomies is likely to produce reduced lesion volumes.

Adult

Lesion volume and clinical outcome in stereotactic pallidotomy and thalamotomy.

Postoperative lesion volume and clinical outcome were assessed in 19 Parkinson's disease (PD) patients who received posteroventral pallidotomy, and in 14 essential tremor (ET) patients who received ventrolateral thalamotomy. Before and after surgery, PD patients were evaluated using the Unified PD Rating Scale (UPDRS), and ET patients were evaluated using the Fahn-Tolosa-Marin (FTM) tremor rating scale. Inner and total lesion volumes were determined with postoperative MR imaging and three-dimensional data segmentation. Lesion volumes were compared to percent improvement in UPDRS and FTM scores, using Spearman's rank-order correlation test. No rank-order correlations were found between lesion volume and clinical improvement in either the PD or the ET patients. In performing stereotactic surgery for movement disorders, any lesion volume within a prescribed range may be equally effective in relieving symptoms associated with PD or ET.

Aged

A comparison of federal definitions of severe mental illness among children and adolescents in four communities.

OBJECTIVE: Using data from an epidemiological survey, the study compared existing definitions of severe mental illness and serious emotional disturbance among children and adolescents to demonstrate the range of prevalence rates resulting from application of different definitions to the same population. METHODS: Three definitions of severe mental illness and serious emotional disturbance were applied to data from the Methods for the Epidemiology of Child and Adolescent Mental Disorders survey, with a sample of 1,285, conducted in 1991-1992 by the National Institute of Mental Health. The resulting proportions of cases identified, demographic characteristics, service use, and perceived need for services were compared. RESULTS: From 3 to 23 percent of the sampled youth met criteria for severe mental illness or serious emotional disturbance. From 40 percent to as many as 78 percent of the defined youth used a mental health service in the year before the survey. School and ambulatory specialty settings were used most frequently. Generally, more than half of the parents of children with severe mental illness or serious emotional disturbance thought that their child needed services. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence and characteristics of severe mental illness and serious emotional disturbance among children are sensitive to the definition used and its operationalization. Care should be taken by policy makers and service planners to avoid either over- or underestimating the prevalence of impaired youth in need of intensive interventions.

Adolescent

Correlates of unmet need for mental health services by children and adolescents.

BACKGROUND: Little is known about the extent and correlates of unmet need for mental health services in community samples of children and adolescents. METHODS: Data were obtained from the 1285 parent/youth pairs interviewed at four sites in the USA and Puerto Rico in the Methods for the Epidemiology of Child and Adolescent Mental Disorders (MECA) Study. Unmet need was defined to exist if psychopathology and associated functional impairment were present but no mental health services had been received in the previous 6 months. RESULTS: Of the total sample, 17.1% had unmet need. Adjusting for demographic variables, logistic regression analyses revealed that unmet need was significantly associated with: indicators of economic disadvantage, such as being on public assistance and not being covered by health insurance; opinions of the parents and children or adolescents that the latter had poor mental health; parental psychopathology; poor school grades; and parent-reported access barriers such as concern that the child would want to solve the problem unassisted, would refuse to attend mental health services, or would be hospitalized or taken away against the parent's will. No youth-reported access barriers were significantly associated with unmet need. CONCLUSIONS: The economic correlates of unmet need may attain increased importance in the light of current reform in health care financing in the USA. Access may be facilitated by increasing parental knowledge of mental health services and enabling children and adolescents to initiate contact with services independently of their families.

Adolescent

Psychiatric disorders associated with substance use among children and adolescents: findings from the Methods for the Epidemiology of Child and Adolescent Mental Disorders (MECA) Study.

The relationships between specific quantities and frequencies of alcohol, cigarette, and illicit substance use and substance use (SUD) and other psychiatric disorders were investigated among 1,285 randomly selected children and adolescents, aged 9 to 18, and their parents, from the Methods for the Epidemiology of Child and Adolescent Mental Disorders (MECA) Study. Logistic regressions indicated that daily cigarette smoking, weekly alcohol consumption, and any illicit substance use in the past year were each independently associated with an elevated likelihood of diagnosis with SUD and other psychiatric disorders (anxiety, mood, or disruptive behavior disorders), controlling for sociodemographic characteristics (age, gender, ethnicity, family income). The associations between the use of specific substances and specific psychiatric disorders varied as a function of gender.

Adolescent

Representativeness of clinical samples of youths with mental disorders: a preliminary population-based study.

In a household community sample of 1,285, 9-17 years-olds with mental disorders who had received outpatient specialty mental health services in the past year were compared with youths with mental disorders who had not received those services to determine if samples drawn from clinical settings are representative of youths with mental disorders in the general population. Those who had used services were more impaired, less competent, more likely to have comorbid disorders, more likely to belong to non-Hispanic White relative to other ethnic groups, and less likely to be prepubertal girls. Their parents were more educated, but less satisfied with family life, engaged in less monitoring of their children, and more likely to have used mental health services themselves. These findings suggest the hypothesis that samples of youths with mental disorders drawn from outpatient clinical settings are not representative of all youths with mental disorders. If confirmed, this would indicate the importance of population-based samples for the study of psychopathology in youths.

Adolescent

The NIMH Methods for the Epidemiology of Child and Adolescent Mental Disorders (MECA) Study: background and methodology.

OBJECTIVE: A collaborative study was conducted to develop methods for surveys of mental disorder and service utilization in unscreened population-based samples of children and adolescents. METHOD: Probability household samples of youths 9 through 17 years of age were selected at four sites and interviews were conducted with a total of 1,285 pairs of youths and their adult caretakers in their homes. Lay interviewers administered a computer-assisted version of the NIMH Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children Version 2.3 and structured interviews to assess demographic variables, functional impairment, risk factors, service utilization, and barriers to service utilization. RESULTS: More than 7,500 households were enumerated at four sites, with enumeration response rates above 99%. Across sites, 84% of eligible youth-caretaker pairs were interviewed for about 2 hours each. Ninety-five percent of both youths and caretakers found the interview to be acceptable enough to recommend to a friend. CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate that large-scale epidemiological surveys of mental disorders and mental health service use involving lengthy interviews in the homes of unscreened population-based samples of youths and their adult caretakers are acceptable to the community and can achieve good response rates. The other reports in this Special Section address the reliability and validity of the various survey instruments and other key findings.

Adolescent

Criterion validity of the NIMH Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children Version 2.3 (DISC-2.3).

OBJECTIVE: To examine the criterion validity of the NIMH Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (DISC) Version 2.3 in the NIMH Methods for the Epidemiology of Child and Adolescent Mental Disorders (MECA) Study, using a design that permitted several comparisons of DISC-generated diagnoses with diagnoses based on clinician symptom ratings. METHOD: Two hundred forty-seven youths were selected from the 1,285 parent-youth pairs that constituted the four-site MECA sample. Subjects who screened positive for any of the five diagnostic areas under investigation in the validity study (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, depressive disorder, and the major anxiety disorders) were recruited, as well as a comparable number of screen negatives. Clinicians reinterviewed separately both the youth and the primary caregiver using the DISC followed by a clinical-style interview, and then they rated the presence of symptoms and impairment. Computer algorithms combined this information into diagnoses using comparable rules for both DISC and clinical rating diagnoses. RESULTS: In general, the DISC showed moderate to good validity across a number of diagnoses. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest some specific diagnostic areas in which further revision of the DISC is warranted. Three main sources of variability in DISC-clinician diagnostic agreement were evident over and above that due to the instrument itself, including (1) the informant used, (2) the algorithm applied in synthesizing symptom reports, and (3) the design of the validity comparison.

Adolescent

Mental health service use in the community and schools: results from the four-community MECA Study. Methods for the Epidemiology of Child and Adolescent Mental Disorders Study.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the use of mental health and substance abuse services by children and adolescents as reported from the four community sites included in the NIMH Methods for the Epidemiology of Child and Adolescent Mental Disorders (MECA) Study. METHOD: As part of the MECA survey, questions were developed to identify children and adolescents utilizing mental health and substance abuse services. Youths aged 9 through 17 years and a parent/ caretaker were interviewed. Because the investigators had concerns about the capacities of the younger children in the study to describe their use of mental health services, more extensive questions were asked of parents than of youths. RESULTS: The procedures developed by the MECA project identified patterns of service use that varied in the four communities surveyed. Agreement between reports of parents and youths regarding the use of mental health and substance abuse services showed substantial inconsistencies, similar to reports of psychiatric disorders. At three of the four sites, the majority of children meeting criteria for a psychiatric disorder and scoring 60 or less on the Children's Global Assessment Scale reported some mental health-related service in the previous year, although at two of the sites fewer than 25% of these youths were seen in the mental health specialty sector. CONCLUSION: Community surveys show great promise for monitoring the need for mental health and substance abuse services and for identifying patterns of use.

Adolescent

Social problem solving: a moderator of the relation between negative life stress and depression symptoms in children.

The social problem-solving skill of generating effective alternative solutions was tested as a moderator of the relation between negative life stress and depressed mood in children. Boys (n = 25) and girls (n = 25), ages 8 to 12 years, from inner-city, lower socioeconomic group families, completed measures of depression symptoms, negative impact of life events, and quantity and effectiveness of alternative solutions to social problems. Results indicated that the effectiveness of alternative solutions children generate in response to peer social problems moderates the relation between stress and depression. Children who experienced a high impact of negative life events, with less effective social problem-solving skills, reported higher levels of depression compared to children who experienced a high impact of negative life events but exhibited more effective social problem-solving skills. Results are discussed in terms of alternative theoretical models for the mechanisms whereby effective social problem-solving skills moderate stress-related depression.

Child

Locus of control and self-esteem in depressed, low-income African-American women.

Depressed, schizophrenic, and well low-income, African-American women were studied in an effort to extend previous hypotheses of the association between depression and the two personality constructs of low self-esteem and externality to this population. Subjects were 113 low income African-American women including 26 who had been diagnosed as depressed, 54 diagnosed as schizophrenic, and 33 well women. Locus of control was measured with the Adult Nowicki-Strickland Internal-External Control Scale (Nowicki & Duke, 1974). Self-esteem was measured with the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965). Contrary to predictions, a diagnosis of schizophrenia, but not depression, was associated with more external locus of control. For self-esteem, severity of disturbance, rather than diagnosis, seemed to be of primary importance. Also, lower self-esteem scores were correlated significantly with higher levels of externality for both depressed and schizophrenic women but not for well controls. The present study indicates that self-esteem and locus of control are related to depression differently in low socio-economic status (SES) African-American women than in previously studied middle SES depressed whites. The findings emphasize the need for more normative studies to clarify the complex relations among SES, race, emotional disturbance, self-esteem, and locus of control.

Adult