Depression Research and Treatment for Your Child
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Updated March 27, 2015.
If your child has been diagnosed with depression, you may wonder if both depression research and individualized treatment should occur together.
In general, your child should be diagnosed and receive individualized treatment for depression in addition to participating in any depression research study. The overall goal of clinical research is to learn about a disorder or a specific population, which means that research is not specifically tailored to your child's circumstances as her individualized treatment plan would be.
Always talk to your child's current mental provider or pediatrician before enrolling in a research study. Also, always let the research study team know which, if any, treatments for depression your child is currently receiving.
It is important to never suddenly stop a child's depression treatment without the advice of a medical professional, as serious consequences may occur.
The goal is always to help your child feel better and decrease her depression symptoms, and sometimes this may include participating in a depression study.
Sources:
Jeremy Sugarman, MD, MPH, MAS. Determining the Appropriateness of Including Children in Clinical Research. How Thick Is the Ice? The Journal of the American Medical Association. 2004. 291(4): 494-496.
SD Edwards, MJ McNamee. Ethical Concerns Regarding Guidelines for the Conduct of Clinical Research on Children. Journal of Medical Ethics. 2005. 31: 351-354.
National Institute of Health. Glossary of Terms for Human Subjects Protection and Inclusion Issues. Accessed: 05/31/2011. http://grants.nih.gov/grants/peer/tree_glossary.pdf
Updated March 27, 2015.
If your child has been diagnosed with depression, you may wonder if both depression research and individualized treatment should occur together.
In general, your child should be diagnosed and receive individualized treatment for depression in addition to participating in any depression research study. The overall goal of clinical research is to learn about a disorder or a specific population, which means that research is not specifically tailored to your child's circumstances as her individualized treatment plan would be.
Always talk to your child's current mental provider or pediatrician before enrolling in a research study. Also, always let the research study team know which, if any, treatments for depression your child is currently receiving.
It is important to never suddenly stop a child's depression treatment without the advice of a medical professional, as serious consequences may occur.
The goal is always to help your child feel better and decrease her depression symptoms, and sometimes this may include participating in a depression study.
Sources:
Jeremy Sugarman, MD, MPH, MAS. Determining the Appropriateness of Including Children in Clinical Research. How Thick Is the Ice? The Journal of the American Medical Association. 2004. 291(4): 494-496.
SD Edwards, MJ McNamee. Ethical Concerns Regarding Guidelines for the Conduct of Clinical Research on Children. Journal of Medical Ethics. 2005. 31: 351-354.
National Institute of Health. Glossary of Terms for Human Subjects Protection and Inclusion Issues. Accessed: 05/31/2011. http://grants.nih.gov/grants/peer/tree_glossary.pdf
