PIT5006 · Child and adolescent psychiatry

Overview

This unit will introduce and prepare you in essentials of the psychiatric care of children, adolescents and their families such as introduction to, epidemiology, aetiology, neurobiology, and principles of diagnostic paradigms, assessment and management of major categories of mental disorders in children and adolescents. The foundation skills in interviewing and assessment of children and adolescents, mental status examination, appropriate medical assessments and investigations, use of collateral sources, family interviewing, developmental assessment, principles of identifying, diagnosing and managing major clinical disorders thus acquired will essentially underpin your progress towards becoming a specialist psychiatrist. This unit will provide a sound academic platform for the trainee's clinical training. The Formal Education Course (FEC) requirement of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) identifies "an awareness of concepts", "working knowledge" or "in-depth knowledge" of the major clinical disorders in children and adolescents this unit is uniquely positioned to enable you to meet these requirements.

Areas of study: Psychiatry

Offerings

Assessment

The Handbook does not list a final examination among the assessment items. That is not a guarantee there is none.

Assessment details may change. Please refer to the assessment information in Moodle closer to the start of the teaching period.

Requisites

The Handbook lists no prerequisite, corequisite or prohibition for this unit.

Learning outcomes

1. Appraise the history of child and adolescent psychiatry, including the key determinants of personal, developmental, familial, and social factors in influencing and contributing to mental health difficulties in young people within key theoretical frameworks, and resultant models of care across the developmental span between infancy to young adulthood.
2. Implement competent psychiatric assessment, interviewing and diagnostic investigation of infants, children and adolescents, attending to family, school, out-of-home care and systems issues with cultural sensitivity, professionalism and insight into complex ethical dimensions that exist in child and adolescent psychiatry.
3. Integrate complex understanding of the biological, psychological, social, cultural and spiritual dimensions of children and adolescents presenting with psychological distress to enrich and inform the formulation of their psychiatric disorders.
4. Examine and apply developmentally appropriate and psychotherapeutic principles of management of the patient and their family.
5. Distinguish different mental health interventions and the role of the multidisciplinary treatment team in child and adolescent psychiatry.
6. Evaluate the evidence-base for management strategies or interventions with children, adolescents and their families presenting with mental health difficulties.

Workload

12 hours per week - 2 hours of lectures, 2 hours of directed online student learning activities, plus 8 hours of self-directed study per week. Participation in a half-day interactive workshop experience on campus to demonstrate that application of theory to practice is mandated.

Student experience, not official rules. Nothing here changes what the Handbook says.