Acta Neuropsychiatrica 2010: 22: 168–173 All rights reserved DOI: 10.1111/j.1601-5215.2010.00475.x  2010 John Wiley & Sons A/S ACTA NEUROPSYCHIATRICA Editorial Can young people reliably rate side effects of low-dose antipsychotic medication using a self-report survey? Walter G, Byrne S, Griffiths O, Hunt G, Soh N, Cleary M, Duffy P, Crawford G, Krabman P, Concannon P, Malhi G. Can young people reliably rate side effects of low-dose antipsychotic medication using a self-report survey? Keywords: adolescent; atypical antipsychotics; child; self-report; side effects. Garry Walter 1,2 , Simon Byrne 2 , Oren Griffiths 3 ,Glenn Hunt 1,4 , Nerissa Soh 2 , Michelle Cleary 5 , Paul Duffy 6 , Geoff Crawford 7 , Peter Krabman 8,9 , Patrick Concannon 10 , Gin Malhi 1,11 1 Discipline of Psychiatry, Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia; 2 Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, Northern Sydney Central Coast Health, NSW, Australia; 3 School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, NSW, Australia; 4 Sydney South West Area Mental Health Service, NSW, Australia; 5 School of Nursing & Midwifery, University of Western Sydney, Penrith, NSW, Australia; 6 Private Practice, Dee Why, NSW, Australia; 7 Private Practice, Sydney, NSW, Australia; 8 Coral Tree Family Service, Northern Sydney Central Coast Health, North Ryde, NSW Australia; 9 Private Practice, Eastwood, NSW, Australia; 10 Private Practice, Chatswood, NSW, Australia; and 11 CADE Clinic, Northern Clinical School, Royal North Shore Hospital, St Leonards, Sydney, Australia Professor Garry Walter, Coral Tree Family Service, Northern Sydney Central Coast Health, PO Box 142, North Ryde, NSW 1670, Australia. Tel: +61 2 9887 5830; Fax: +61 2 9887 2941; E-mail: gwalter@mail.usyd.edu.au Many neuropsychiatric illnesses commence in ado- lescence, or sooner, and psychotropic medication plays a key role in the overall treatment. The mon- itoring and management of side effects from these medications is an important component of psychiatric care in the child and adolescent population. To best achieve this, clinicians are dependent upon reliable self-report of side effects from their young patients. There has been a noticeable increase in the use of antipsychotic medications to treat psychiatric dis- orders in young people over the past 10 years (1,2). Low doses of newer and purportedly safer ‘atypical antipsychotics’ have been used to treat symptoms of a diverse range of child and adolescent psychiatric disorders, including psychoses, bipolar disorder, autism and behavioural problems (3,4). Risperidone is the most commonly prescribed atypical antipsy- chotic for young people in North America, the United Kingdom and Australia (4–7). Low doses of risperi- done have generally been shown to be safe and well tolerated in this population (8–10). Despite being generally well tolerated, many young people experience adverse effects associ- ated with antipsychotics such as risperidone. Cor- rell (11–13) argued that young people may be more vulnerable to some adverse effects associated 168 https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1601-5215.2010.00475.x Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 54.163.42.124, on 30 May 2020 at 23:48:25, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at