Increasing Awareness of Child and Adolescent Mental Health

In this volume, Elena Garralda and Jean-Philippe Raynaud aim to contribute to advancing awareness of child and adolescent mental health within an international framework that gives special consideration to problems arising in different contexts around the world and through expert views supported by empirical evidence and considering clinical implications.

There is increasing recognition worldwide of the importance of child and adolescent mental health problems, of the distress and impairment they can cause to children and their families, and of the markedly adverse effects on education and on adult psychiatric adjustment when left untreated. Globally, however, services to attend to these problems in children are uneven and patchy. There is a need to advance awareness of child and adolescent mental health and of factors that influence them.

Chapters address the effects on child mental health of issues ranging from secular changes in family composition in both western and eastern countries, rapid industrialization, poverty, deprivation, and adoption, to refugee status and aboriginal life. It considers emerging issues, such as cyber addiction, PTSD, ADHD across different cultures, and the autistic "epidemic." They discuss new service developments (Eastern Europe, paediatric liaison services) in the context of traditional methods (traditional Chinese medicine).

M. Elena Garralda is professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at Imperial College, London.

Jean-Philippe Raynaud is professor of child and adolescent psychiatry, head of department at Toulouse University Hospital, France.