Abstract

Although psychotropic drugs are prescribed relatively often for childhood psychiatric and seizure disorders, relatively little is known about their use in everyday clinical settings--with the exception of children with ADHD and individuals with mental retardation. A legion of methodological and logistical obstacles are encountered when trying to gather information about pharmacotherapy for children, and this has often limited data collection to institutional settings or highly restricted geographic areas. Although initial efforts to study the extent of drug therapy focused primarily on the number of individuals receiving treatment and secondarily on drug dose, the breadth of topics quickly expanded to include numerous issues pertaining to the way psychotherapeutic agents are prescribed, evaluated, and monitored in typical clinical situations. This article presents an overview of treatment prevalence studies conducted during the past three decades and reviews a variety of clinical concerns raised by researchers in pediatric psychopharmacoepidemiology. The most salient findings from these studies are: (a) medication use continues to increase, (b) treatment prevalence rates in residential programs continue to be very high (40%-60%), and (c) many researchers continue to be concerned about the quality of treatment practices. The methodologies of this field show considerable promise for addressing pressing issues in health care for children and adolescents with emotional or behavioral disorders.