Comorbidity classes and associated impairment, demographics and 9/11-exposures in 8,236 children and adolescents

Publication date: January 2018 Source:Journal of Psychiatric Research, Volume 96 Author(s): Lupo Geronazzo-Alman, Guia Guffanti, Ruth Eisenberg, Bin Fan, George J. Musa, Judith Wicks, Michaeline Bresnahan, Cristiane S. Duarte, Christina Hoven The extensive comorbidity of psychiatric disorders in children and adolescents leads to clinical heterogeneity, and is an often-overlooked issue in etiopathogenic and treatment studies in developmental psychopathology. In a representative sample (N=8236) of New York City public school students assessed six months after 9/11, latent class analysis was applied to 48 symptoms across seven disorders: posttraumatic stress, agoraphobia, separation anxiety, panic disorder, generalized anxiety (GAD), major depression (MDD) and conduct disorder (CD). Our objective was to identify classes defined by homogenous symptom profiles, and to examine the association between class membership and gender, age, race, different types of exposure to 9/11, and impairment. Eight homogenous comorbidity patterns were identified, including four severe disturbance classes: a multimorbid internalizing class (INT), a class with a high probability of CD, MDD, and GAD symptoms (Distress/EXT), a non-comorbid externalizing class, and a non-comorbid MDD class. Demographic and 9/11-related exposures showed some degree of specificity in their association with severe symptom profiles. Impairment was particularly high in the INT and Distress/EXT classes. A better cha...
Source: Journal of Psychiatric Research - Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research