Metformin has been used off-label for weight loss in psychiatry for many years, much of it for help with adult weight gain as a side effect of atypical antipsychotics. However, most trials of metformin for weight loss were actually conducted on the child and adolescent population. This article will look at the quality of the data in our pediatric population of 3 studies, and then come up with some recommendations for your practice.

Good practice using psychotropic medications with children and adolescents requires a psychiatrist to pay attention to a number of elements.

Over the last decade, several published studies have reported an increased risk of type 2 diabetes associated with antidepressant use in adults. But does the same hold true for children and adolescents?

After reading these articles, you should be able to…

Anxiety is a broad concept that permeates pretty much all of our work. In particular, anxiety often compromises cognitive ability and drives acting-out behavior.

Because of their quick action, benzodiazepines (BZDs) are frequently prescribed to treat patients with anxiety and other conditions. However, clinicians need to consider the potential for unintended and problematic consequences of benzodiazepine use.

When parents bring in their kids for concentration, attention, and learning issues, it’s common to assume a provisional diagnosis of ADHD. In many children, however, anxiety can be the real cause of these problems.

We are all busy clinicians, but if we pause and take note of our natural responses and learn how we typically respond to various kinds of kids, we gain a valuable tool that supports our ability to effectively and efficiently assess a child.

From obsessions, compulsions, and tics, to personality changes and oppositional behavior, the symptoms of PANS are wide-ranging. PANDAS is considered a subset of PANS that is temporally associated with a Group A streptococcal (GAS) infection.

Emotional stress can trigger an inflammatory cascade response and increase blood levels of proinflammatory cytokines—including IL-1, IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF-α). These same inflammatory markers intensify in acute episodes of depression and mania.