The Epidemiology of Behavior Disorders in Children

Childhood depression: A critique of the concept.

“…Certainly, if the incidence criterion used by Shepherd et al (1971) of 10% or less of the sample were applied, 33% depressed would hardly be viewed as statistically deviant. Actually these data are consonant with those generated by the larger epidemiological studies (Lapouse, 1966;Shepherd et al, 1971;Werry & Quay, 1971) and the New York Longitudinal Study (Chess & Thomas, 1972), which showed an incidence of depression symptoms in 20%-40% of their samples.…”

“…The results showed a "surprisingly high prevalence" of many behaviors generally regarded as symptoms of psychopathology in children. In accord with the epidemiological findings of Lapouse (1966) and Werry and Quay (1971), the data strongly suggest that the incidence of many of these behaviors is a direct function of age and may be a transient manifestation of developmental reactions to stress in essentially normal children. For example, crying, putatively a symptom of childhood depression, diminishes dramatically with age: At age 6 approximately 18% were reported to cry "two or three times a week," but at puberty only about 2% were reported to do so.…”

Behaviour and Personality in Childhood as Predictors of Adult Psychiatric Disorder

“…Table 1 shows the relevant data available from the first 16 yrs of the study, age when each piece of information was obtained and the sources used. The specific behaviour characteristics included in the NSHD were similar to those investigated in other population studies of children (Lapouse, 1966;Shepherd, Oppenheim & Mitchell, 1971). Interviews with the mothers of survey members were conducted by health visitors {in 1950) and by school nurses (in 1952, 1954 and 1955).…”

Developmental Epidemiology

“…By 1970 a number of older general population studies (Cullen & Boundy, 1966;Cummings, 1944;Griffiths, 1952;Haggerty, 1925;Lapouse, 1966;Lapouse & Monk, 1958, 1964Long, 1941;McFie, 1934;Olson, 1930;Wickman, 1928;Young-Masten, 1938;Yourman, 1932) reported prevalences of individual problem behaviors reported by parents and teachers of older children and adolescents. One of the achievements of these early child psychiatric epidemiologists was to document just how common individual abnormal behaviors are in the general population of children.…”