Issues in child and adolescent psychology

In recent years, prevalence studies of mental health disorders in the population have revealed concerning indicators, the most worrying of which is that the child and adolescent population have exceeded 40% prevalence by age group.

Disorders that have always been present on the child and adolescent spectrum such as attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity, autism spectrum disorder, psychosis, eating disorders, mood alterations, behavioural changes and cognitive development limitations illustrate the number of phenomena that must be tackled in order to offer support and improvement.

Without doubt, social determinants on the rise due to global inequality and poverty have an influence on this situation, including domestic violence, physical and mental abuse, sexual violence, displacement, poor schooling, lack of attachment networks that enable adequate psychosocial development, etc., without disregarding determinants of a genetic, neurological and obstetric nature.

If we add the lack of interest of governments and health and education systems in working to overcome part of this issue, the prospects look bleak. In a few years we will have a population with few tools to manage and adapt to life situations, with a low capacity for resilience, poor handling of frustration, having not acquired life skills such as conflict resolution, control of emotions, ability to relate and the construction of gratifying life projects. In education, there are insufficient postgraduate programmes in the area to support projects to tackle this issue.

Awareness and political will is needed if we are to begin to solve this problem, establishing schools to train the necessary human talent in the specific skills for this. Some European countries claim to be doing so, including Spain and the United Kingdom. In Colombia, there are only three postgraduate programmes in child and adolescent psychiatry, with few psychiatrists trained in these areas.