Review article

Psychopharmacotherapy in Children and Adolescents

Dubravka Kocijan
Dragica Kozarić
Vesna Hercigonja

Abstract

Psychopharmacotherapy of children and
adolescents, due to its specificities, is a special subpspecialization
and requires additional education. It is a clinical
discipline with numerous unknown issues, because a very
small number of well organized clinical trials have been performed
in children and adolescents, and the experiences
are scarce. Clinical trials are usually performed in persons
over 18 years of age, but children in development show certain
specificities in both pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics.
Thus, the experiences with adults cannot be directly
transferred to children. For example, the side effects of
antipsychotics, although generally similar to those in adults,
in children and adolescents gain more importance primarily
due to increased sensitivity when children are involved, both
in children themselves and in parents. The evaluation of efficacy
is hard to perform, because very often when particular
symptoms subside it is difficult to judge whether this occurrence
is the consequence of drug efficacy or withdrawal of
symptoms connected with the child's maturation and growing
up. Due to frequent side effects and insufficient knowledge
on possible side effects in children and adolescents,
non-medication methods of treatment should be preferred.

Keywords

psychpharmaca; children; adolescents

Hrčak ID:

20026

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/20026

Publication date:

25.9.2002.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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