Overview
The Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center is dedicated to serving the mental health needs of infants, children, adolescents and their families. The division provides clinical care, education, research, and community service to improve the psychiatric outcomes of children, adolescents, and families.
Clinical
Diverse treatment programs offer multiple levels of care. Inpatient units provide intensive, supervised treatment to children and adolescents who have acute psychiatric needs. Children from infancy up to the age of 17 are treated at one of two locations: Cincinnati Children's Main Campus or College Hill Campus. Children and adolescents who suffer from chronic mental illness and require longer term care in a therapeutic environment are treated in the Residential Psychiatric Program located at the College Hill Campus. This 33 bed program in addition to psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy offers educational, vocational, milieu, experiential therapy, and community re-entry services. The Psychiatric Consultation Service offers consultation and diagnostic services to children and adolescents who have psychiatric sequelae from medical illness and for those with behavioral complications. The Psychiatric Intake Response Center conducts emergency evaluation and referral services to community agencies throughout the region. Psychiatry Outpatient Services provide diagnostic assessments, pharmacological management, and intensive psychotherapy services for the full spectrum of mental health disorders. Community-based psychiatric services include direct service and consultation to therapeutic pre-schools, case management agencies, group homes, and residential care facilities.
Teaching
The Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Residency Program trains and prepares 4th and 5th year residents in General and Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. The Pediatric, General Psychiatry, and Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Residency Program is one of 10 Triple Board Programs in the country. Completion of this 5-year residency program leads to board eligibility in all three specialty areas. The division also provides training for medical students, pediatric residents, general psychiatry residents, and other physician trainees in child, adolescent, and family mental health. The division presents Child Psychiatry Grand Rounds, which is offered to the medical center and all community providers of mental health treatment. The division also participates in ongoing training programs for community pediatricians.
Research
The focus of Divisional research has been on selected psychiatric disorders. Pediatric mood disorders, which include depressive and bipolar disorders are prevalent. They seriously disrupt the lives of children and adolescents. Research in this area includes NIMH funded initiatives, along with industry supported pharmacologic trials. Current work includes investigation of longitudinal assessment of manic symptoms, the use of family-focused treatment as an adjunct to pharmacologic intervention in pediatric bipolar patients, and the efficacy of specific pharmacologic agents in the treatment of pediatric bipolar disorder. Additional work in bipolar disorders continues in conjunction with the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine Department of Psychiatry. This includes work in Neuroimaging and the study of high-risk populations.
Other research areas include the study of impulsive aggression, with attempts to identify youth with psychiatric disorders and their risk for violence and aggression in treatment settings, and Tourette’s Syndrome, evaluating the association of the premonitory urge with specific tic expression and its’ anatomical correlates.
