Psychotropic drugs and paediatrics: a critical need for more clinical trials

Many children in the USA are prescribed psychotropic drugs that have not been fully investigated in paediatric clinical trials. The common practice of prescribing psychotropic drugs off-label poses unknown and potentially serious short- and long-term consequences for these children. This paper brief...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Tishler, L. (Author) ; Reiss, S. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: BMJ Publ. 2012
In: Journal of medical ethics
Year: 2012, Volume: 38, Issue: 4, Pages: 250-252
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Summary:Many children in the USA are prescribed psychotropic drugs that have not been fully investigated in paediatric clinical trials. The common practice of prescribing psychotropic drugs off-label poses unknown and potentially serious short- and long-term consequences for these children. This paper briefly reviews the factors associated with the lack of paediatric clinical trials. We advocate a shift toward increasing paediatric trials with psychotropic drugs through a combination of adequate safety controls, additional reimbursement/compensation, a more organised and large-scale effort to collate results and outcomes across researchers and studies and additional public education about the importance of this research. In addition, we encourage the re-examination of the ethical standards for children's participation in phase 1 clinical trials as well as argue for longitudinal developmental studies on children who are prescribed off-label psychotropic drugs.
ISSN:1473-4257
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of medical ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1136/medethics-2011-100003