Diagnosing pediatric depression

This review examines current instrumentation for making clinical and research diagnoses of depressive disorders in children and adolescents. Reliable assessment of depression in children requires gathering information from both the parent and child, as well as from all other available information. The methodology for obtaining information from the child must be adapted to reword and better obtain information in those domains that are inherently difficult for children, including questions about internal affect state and questions requiring judgment. Because child depression is highly comorbid with other psychiatric disorders, including anxiety, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and conduct disorder (CD), it is imperative that these and other psychiatric disorders be simultaneously assessed. A number of structured and semistructured instruments address this task well. More work is needed to decrease the time burden and cost of reliable assessment of child depression.