In latest years the concept of quality of life (QoL) has been acknowledged as an important outcome in psychiatric pathology fields. Most researchers consider that social indicators and the perception of personal wellbeing also, should be considered when measuring the quality of life. Our purpose was to investigate the QoLof the families of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and to determine whether in this population, the potential mediators (irrational cognitions, negative automatic thoughts, coping strategies) relate significantly with the emotional distress reported. We also aimed to assess the parents’ irrational cognitions and negative automatic thoughts as mediators in the relationship between the overall assessment of family QoLand their emotional distress. We found significant correlations between the emotional distress reported by the parents and their automatic negative thoughts, irrational cognitions, and different coping strategies. The relationship between the overall assessment of family QoLand the parents’ emotional distress was partially explained by their negative automatic thoughts and irrational cognitions. In this view, the specialised services should include also interventions for the parents of children with developmental disorders (ASD, ADHD) in order to improve their overall assessment of familyQoL.
Part of the book: Autism
Conduct disorder (CD) is a matter of societal concern because of the significant burden for the patient, family and immediate environment and the strong associations with school failure, disrupted peer and family relationships, excessive risk-taking and addictive behaviors. The economic costs of aggressive and antisocial behavior in children and adolescents are huge. The mechanisms that lead individuals to adopt such behaviors have been defined and approached from various perspectives. Our purpose was to assess the emotional distress, irrational beliefs, emotion regulation strategies and callousness, uncaring, unemotional traits in a sample of adolescents diagnosed with conduct disorder and to investigate the relationship between them. The adolescents with conduct disorder had a low level of emotional distress and negative dysfunctional emotions. Girls reported a higher level of emotional distress than boys and significantly lower positive emotions. We found significant correlations between the emotional distress reported by the adolescents and their irrational cognitions. The suppression and reassessment strategies did not register values above those of the general population. No significant relation was found between emotional distress and the emotional regulation strategies reappraisal and suppression. The use of suppression related significantly with callousness, uncaring, and unemotional traits. The reappraisal coping strategy related significantly only with uncaring trait, the relation being negative. Research findings from different areas correlated with pathology may improve current therapies (i.e., including emotion regulation training in individualized intervention protocol) or help to develop new ones.
Part of the book: Psychopathy
The prevalence of anxiety disorders is known to be increasing among children and adolescents and often co-exist with another psychiatric disorder. There is some evidence that anxiety disorders in nonwestern countries have the same comorbidity patterns as in other world regions and may have similar predictors including age and gender. However, more evidence from different countries is needed. The major goal of the study was to evaluate the prevalence of anxiety disorders in a clinical setting and to describe the comorbidity patterns and predictors. We conducted a retrospective study on the admitted patients in the Clinic of Pediatric Psychiatry from Cluj-Napoca, Romania, between January 2017 and December 2017. A clinical sample of 2471 patients aged between 3 and 18 years with psychiatric disorders, assessed and/or treated in the clinic, was included into the study. About 9.88% patients (N = 244) of the clinical sample were diagnosed with an anxiety disorder as a primary diagnosis. About 79.5% of the selected sample had a comorbid disorder and 34.4% had an anxiety or mood comorbidity. Preference in treatment was nonpharmachological and, according to the degree of severity, SSRI medication. Our results underline the significant prevalence of anxiety disorders and the high rate of comorbidities.
Part of the book: Psychopathology