SUMMARYPurpose: Evidence for a poor psychiatric, social, and vocational adult outcome in childhood absence epilepsy (CAE) suggests long-term unmet mental health, social, and vocational needs. This cross-sectional study examined behavioral/emotional, cognitive, and linguistic comorbidities as well as their correlates in children with CAE. Methods: Sixty-nine CAE children aged 9.6 (SD ¼ 2.49) years and 103 age-and gender-matched normal children had semistructured psychiatric interviews, as well as cognitive and linguistic testing. Parents provided demographic, seizure-related, and behavioral information on their children through a semi-structured psychiatric interview and the child behavior checklist (CBCL). Results: Compared to the normal group, 25% of the CAE children had subtle cognitive deficits, 43% linguistic difficulties, 61% a psychiatric diagnosis, particularly attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and anxiety disorders, and 30% clinically relevant CBCL broad band scores. The most frequent CBCL narrow band factor scores in the clinical/borderline range were attention and somatic complaints, followed by social and thought problems. Duration of illness, seizure frequency, and antiepileptic drug (AED) treatment were related to the severity of the cognitive, linguistic, and psychiatric comorbidities. Only 23% of the CAE subjects had intervention for these problems. Conclusions: The high rate of impaired behavior, emotions, cognition, and language and low intervention rate should alert clinicians to the need for early identification and treatment of children with CAE, particularly those with longer duration of illness, uncontrolled seizures, and AED treatment.

SUMMARYPurpose: This study examined the severity and range of linguistic impairments in young, intermediate, and adolescent youth with epilepsy and how these deficits were associated with illness effects, nonverbal intelligence, psychopathology, and reading. Methods: Tests of language, intelligence, achievement, and structured psychiatric interviews were administered to 182 epilepsy youth, aged 6.3-8.1, 9.1-11.7, and 13.0-15.2 years, as well as to 102 age-and gender-matched normal children. Parents provided demographic, seizure-related, and behavioral information on their children. Results: Significantly more epilepsy subjects had language scores 1 standard deviation (SD) below average than the age-matched control groups did. The intermediate and adolescent epilepsy groups also had significantly lower mean language scores compared to their matched controls. The older compared to the younger epilepsy groups had more language impairment and a wider range of linguistic deficits. Longer duration of illness, childhood absence epilepsy, psychiatric diagnosis, and socioeconomic status were associated with linguistic deficits in the young group. Prolonged seizures, lower Performance IQ, and minority status predicted low language scores in the intermediate epilepsy group. In the adolescent group, language impairment was associated with poor seizure control, decreased Performance IQ, and lower socioeconomic status. Linguistic and reading deficits were significantly related in each epilepsy group. Conclusions: The age-related increase in linguistic impairment, different profiles of predictors in each age group, and the relationship of linguistic deficits with poor reading skills have important clinical, developmental, theoretical, and academic implications.

Shared decision making (SDM) interventions aim to improve client autonomy, information sharing and collaborative decision making, yet implementation of these interventions has been variably perceived. Using interviews and focus groups with clients and clinicians from mental health clinics, we explored experiences with and perceptions about decision support strategies aimed to promote SDM around psychotropic medication treatment. Using thematic analysis, we identified themes regarding beliefs about participant involvement, information management and participants' broader understanding of their epistemic expertise. Clients and clinicians highly valued clientcentered priorities such as autonomy and empowerment when making decisions.However, two frequently discussed themes revealed complex beliefs about what that involvement should look like in practice: 1) the role of communication and information exchange and 2) the value and stability of clinician and client epistemic expertise.Complex beliefs regarding these two themes suggested a dynamic and reflexive approach to information management. Situating these findings within the Theory of Motivated Information Management, we discuss implications for conceptualizing SDM in mental health services and adapt Siminoff and Step's Communication Model of Shared Decision Making (CMSDM) to propose a Communication-centered Epistemic Model of SharedDecision Making (CEM-SDM).3The quality of mental health care has been argued to be largely dependent on the quality of client-clinician communication (Priebe & McCabe, 2008), which is critical for accomplishing clinical tasks and improving health outcomes (Alegría et al., 2008;Wissow et al., 2008). The model of shared decision making (SDM) reconceptualizes client-clinician communication (Patel, Bakken & Ruland, 2008) by redefining the terms by which participants come together to make treatment decisions (Drake, Deegan & Rapp, 2010). In a SDM frame, neither clinicians (paternalistic model) nor clients (informed choice model) are singularly responsible for making decisions (Makoul & Clayman, 2006). Instead, decision making is characterized by the exchange of unbiased information (Drake et al., 2010), collaboration (Charles, Gafni & Whelan, 1999) and mutual respect for differing expertise (Deegan & Drake, 2006). Given the centrality of communication in mental health care, we believe the assumptions underlying SDM warrant critical examination.For instance, despite widespread support for SDM, its principles are not uniformly perceived or advocated. Not all clients desire high levels of autonomy (Levinson, Kao, Kuby & Thisted, 2005; Say, Murtagh & Thompson, 2006), and psychiatrists have been found to both value and criticize elements of SDM including the exchange of unbiased information (Seale, Chaplin, Lelliott & Quirk, 2006). To elucidate these discrepancies, we elicited perspectives from clients and mental health clinicians about their experiences making and facilitating medication decisions and about strategies that might suppo...

Many adolescents and adults do not seek treatment for mental health symptoms. Smartphone applications (apps) may assist individuals with mental health concerns in alleviating symptoms or increasing understanding. This study seeks to characterize apps readily available to smartphone users seeking mental health information and/or support. Ten key terms were searched in the Apple iTunes and Google Play stores: mental health, depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar, trauma, trauma in schools, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), child trauma, and bullying. A content analysis of the first 20 application descriptions retrieved per category was conducted. Out of 300 nonduplicate applications, 208 (70%) were relevant to search topic, mental health or stress. The most common purported purpose for the apps was symptom relief (41%; n = 85) and general mental health education (18%; n = 37). The most frequently mentioned approaches to improving mental health were those that may benefit only milder symptoms such as relaxation (21%; n = 43). Most app descriptions did not include information to substantiate stated effectiveness of the application (59%; n = 123) and had no mention of privacy or security (89%; n = 185). Due to uncertainty of the helpfulness of readily available mental health applications, clinicians working with mental health patients should inquire about and provide guidance on application use, and patients should have access to ways to assess the potential utility of these applications. Strategic policy and research developments are likely needed to equip patients with applications for mental health, which are patient centered and evidence based.