South Asian origin. Six community focus groups were conducted followed by semistructured interviews with families who had used CAMHS and with CAMHS professionals involved in those families' cases. Lastly, parents of children who had problems usually referred to CAMHS but who had not used the service were interviewed. Qualitative analysis of transcripts and notes was undertaken using thematic and logical methods.

The catchment area of the South Glasgow Child Psychiatry Team includes a high proportion of families of South Asian origin, yet few are referred for services. For those who are referred, team members, all white British, have found that there is often a gulf between their understanding of the child's problems and that of the family, which makes provision of an adequate service difficult. We made a review of all available case notes of South Asian families attending the service in the preceding year with the aim of identifying barriers to referral, assessment and treatment. Assessments were complex and often unsatisfactory, although around half of families eventually reached consensus on diagnosis and treatment with the clinician(s). A larger proportion of South Asian children were diagnosed with and treated for ADHD compared with the general population of children being seen at that time. A minority of families did not receive the treatment of choice because of language mismatch or lack of consensus over the child's diagnosis. The implications of the difficulties with shared language and other aspects of communication for practice and for further research are discussed.

When our first child was stillborn on 13 February 1983 our worst fears were realised. We had both witnessed obstetric and paediatric disasters in our clinical careers and had friends who had lost children through malignant disease and the sudden infant death syndrome, so there was no immediate feeling of, "Why us ?" We had even discussed how we would cope with a sick or malformed infant, and two nights before I went into hospital my husband dreamt that the baby would be stillborn.

No abstract

No abstract