CAPSS 15-year anniversary symposium

Speaker:
Professor Dasha Nicholls

Summary provided by:
Dr Benjamin Geers, CAPSS Executive Committee

Professor Dasha Nicholls, co-founder of CAPSS, presented key findings from three major studies. The first, Eating Disorders in Children under 13, Clinical profiles from a British National Surveillance Study’ , identified 209 confirmed cases. Most were reported by psychiatrists (75%), with a mean age of 11.5 years and an illness duration of 8.3 months. Notably, 86% were white British, 64% of females were premenarcheal, and 13% were male. Half of the patients were admitted, 11% received NG feeding, and 13% were prescribed psychotropic medication. Latent class analysis of several cohorts supported the emergence of Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) as a distinct clinical entity.

Speaker: 
Associate Prof. Tamsin Newlove-Delgado

Summary provided by:
Dr Benjamin Geers, CAPSS Executive Committee

Tamsin Newlove-Delgado from the University of Exeter presented key findings from the Children and Young People with ADHD in Transition from Child to Adult Services (CATCh-uS) study. The study highlighted how a low proportion of young people with ADHD transition successfully to adult services, with high rates of medication cessation between ages 16 and 18.

In summary, few young people needing ongoing ADHD support experienced successful or optimal transitions. There was wide variation in service provision, and the mapping process itself yielded valuable insights. The study underscored the need for better investment, clearer service structures, and improved information sharing to support effective transitions.

Professor Kapil Sayal presented his work with the Far away from home study. The surveillance study captured data from general adolescent units in England with admissions greater than 50 miles away from a young person’s home, general adolescent units outside their NHS commissioning region area or Adult psychiatric wards.   

Dr Adi Sharma gave a talk on the topic ‘What’s bipolar about paediatric mood disorders?’ He also discussed the CAPSS study titled ‘Incidence, characteristics and course of narrow phenotype bipolar disorder type 1 in the British Isles.’

These are some of the important points highlighted in his talk:

• The peak age of onset of bipolar disorder is 15 to 19 years, and there is often a substantial delay between onset and first contact with mental health services.
• The prevalence rate of bipolar disorder in youth population varies among different countries and it is lower in UK comparing to other countries.
• The above mentioned CAPSS study aimed to estimate the surveillance incidence of paediatric bipolar disorder in the UK population and to study about the symptomology, comorbidity, associated factors, management strategies and clinical outcomes at 1-year follow-up.
• There were 151 cases in total reported based on the initial questionnaire and around 26% fulfilled the analytical definition criteria.
• The median duration between the first onset of symptoms and diagnosis was 6 weeks (range 0–200 weeks).
• The median age at the time of first diagnosis was 15 years and 2 months (range 10 years–15 years 11 months).