Children that faced psychiatric problems in their childhood had adverse outcomes as adults even though the disorder didn't persist as they entered adulthood, reports researchers at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina in a study published in JAMA Psychiatry.

The research involved about 1,420 children from 11 counties in rural North Carolina, aged nine, eleven and thirteen. The children were studied for 17 years from 1993 through 2010, once every year till they turned 16 and once again as they entered 19, 21 and 25 years of age, reported CBC News.

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It was observed that children with diagnosable psychiatric disorders are six times more prone to about six adverse outcomes that include incarceration, addiction, high-school dropout and teenage pregnancy. About 59.5 percent of the children with diagnosable psychiatric problems and 41.5 percent of participants with sub-threshold problems were observed to have adverse outcomes as adults. In contrast only one fifth of the children that had no childhood psychiatric problems faced adverse outcomes, reported Medical News Today.

Dr. William Copeland, the lead author of the study, from Duke University Medical Center noted that "Many children will experience impairing psychiatric problems over the course of their childhood. These common early disorders are often associated with a disrupted transition to adulthood, even if the psychiatric problems do not persist into adulthood and even if the problems do not meet full criteria for a psychiatric disorder," noted Medical News Today.

Children with psychiatric disorders are likely to face health, social, legal and financial problems in their adulthood. Children with mental health problems are more prone to developing anxiety, depression, ADHD and behavioural or conduct problems, said Copeland. The author also noted that criminal behaviour of children with psychiatric problems reach the peak from 19 to 21 years and start stabilizing as they reach 25, reported TIME.

"With each additional exposure to childhood psychiatric problems, the prognosis becomes more dire. If the goal of public health efforts is to increase opportunity and optimal outcomes, and to reduce distress, then there may be no better target than the reduction of childhood psychiatric distress - at the clinical and sub-threshold levels," noted Copeland as per Medical News Today. 

TagsPsychiatric Problems, Childhood problems, depression, ADHD