Abstract
Since 1995, Cambridge University Press has produced an excellent series of important publications in child and adolescent psychiatry. This edited book is one of them. Its authors are mainly from Europe and they have carried on the worthy tradition of carefully examining the history of the development of the conceptual framework of the subject matter; in this case, schizophrenia in children and adolescents.
Unfortunately, the authorship has not included at least two very important groups of researchers. The book would have been strengthened by reports of work that focuses on early detection and intervention of First Episode Psychosis pioneered by Professor Patrick McGorry in Melbourne and the comprehensive investigation of childhood onset schizophrenia headed by Dr Judith Rapoport in the National Institute of Mental Health, Washington DC.
The editor has named the book Schizophrenia in Children and Adolescents and not Childhood Schizophrenia. This is important as the term childhood schizophrenia has been used too broadly in the past. Two other terms have been found to be useful in research and clinical studies – early onset and very early onset schizophrenia. They are used in this book.
I found the chapter by Chris Hollis most stimulating. He provides a very thoughtful discussion of the issues related to the diagnostic concepts of premorbid personality, prodrome, and onset of schizophrenia and the usefulness of the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia in clinical epidemiology and clinical practice. I met him at the conference of the International Society for Research in Child and Adolescent Psychopathology held in Vancouver in June, last year, where he presented his recently completed research on the predicting factors for the long-term outcome of childhood onset schizophrenia and the link between childhood onset schizophrenia and severe language disorder. The results were very interesting. Watch out for his publications.
From New Zealand, Sally Merry and John Werry provide a scholarly review of the course and prognosis of childhood onset schizophrenia. They have raised the issues in relation to very early onset and early onset schizophrenia. They have also pointed out the dearth of research on schizophrenia in this age group.
Overall, I found the book very useful for providing comprehensive coverage of the knowledge base of schizophrenia in children and adolescents. Child and adolescent mental health professionals often have limited experience with this low prevalence disorder and they will find this book helpful. Unfortunately, the turnover of this book was rather slow which means that publications released after 1998 are not included in the references. Some important publications on this topic have come out in the last three years. Judith Rapoport et al. have provided a very instructive summary of the recent developments in the neurosciences in relation to childhood onset schizophrenia, especially the imaging of normal and abnormal brain development [1].
Clearly, research on childhood onset schizophrenia is extremely important for our understanding of schizophrenia. I look forward to the second edition of this book, and hopefully it will include a wider international authorship and have a quicker turnover in publication.