Diagnosis of hyperkinetic disorder among children in Norway. / Diagnostikk av hyperkinetisk forstyrrelse hos barn i Norge.

BACKGROUND: Hyperkinetic disorder is one of the most frequently used psychiatric diagnoses among children and adolescents in Norway. It has previously been shown that use of the diagnosis varies widely by county. MATERIAL AND METHOD: We estimated the proportion of children with hyperkinetic disorder using patient data from the Norwegian Patient Registry and population data from the Norwegian Population Registry. The estimations were made for both Norway as a whole and by county. Assessment and documentation of the diagnosis were surveyed by linking the Norwegian Patient Registry and the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study. We reviewed medical records from specialist mental health services for children and adolescents and assessed whether the diagnoses met the research criteria for hyperkinetic disorder. RESULTS: At 12 years of age, 5.4 % of Norwegian boys and 2.1 % of Norwegian girls had been diagnosed with hyperkinetic disorder by specialist health services. The proportion of children varied between 1.4 % and 5.5 % among the counties. A review of medical records for 549 children showed that 49 % of the diagnoses were reliably documented in the records. The main reasons that the diagnosis was not documented were a discrepancy between the information in the medical record and diagnostic criteria (38 %) and inadequate differential diagnostic assessment (46 %). INTERPRETATION: There was considerable geographic variation in the proportions of children and adolescents with hyperkinetic disorder. A large percentage of the diagnoses were not reliably documented in medical records. The guideline for evaluation, diagnostics and medical recordkeeping should be reviewed.

A Gap Between Children's Rights and Curricular Content in Health, Social Care, and Teacher Education Programs: An Exploratory Cross-Sectional Study.

INTRODUCTION: Exposure to child maltreatment is a social and public health challenge that will require interprofessional collaboration to overcome. Evidence indicates that professional students in health, social care, and teacher education programs receive inadequate training in recognizing and responding to child maltreatment. The aims are to 1) assess the extent to which these students found that their uniprofessional education and a large-scale interprofessional learning (IPL) course had taught them about children in general, children's rights, and vulnerable/at-risk children; and 2) explore differences in student responses according to age and educational background. METHODS: A cross-sectional study. Students (n=2811) completed questionnaires prior to or after IPL courses held in 2019 and 2020 (hybrid case-based, small-group, on-campus courses targeting children, young people, and their families as end users). FINDINGS: The majority (>90%) agreed that it was important to learn about child-related topics. Only 4.3% disagreed that it was important to learn about vulnerable/at-risk children. Health and social care students enhanced their insight into all the child-related topics (p<0.001) after the IPL course. Teacher education and child welfare students reported decreased insight into children in general (p<0.001 in 2019 and p=0.008 in 2020) but increased insight into vulnerable/at-risk children in 2020 (p=0.001). According to stratified analyses, there was a significantly increased insight into all child-related topics among physiotherapy and Mensendieck physiotherapy students (p<0.001), decreased insight into children in general among teacher education students (p<0.02), and increased insight into vulnerable/at-risk children among teacher education students (p ≤ 0.001) in both 2019 and 2020. Age was of minor importance. The response rates ranged from 16.0% to 36.0%. CONCLUSION: After the IPL course, the health and social care students significantly enhanced their insight into child-related topics, whereas the students in teacher education and child welfare gained increased insight into vulnerable/at-risk children.