SummaryA double-blind trial failed to demonstrate any significant short-term effects of clomipramine in doses recommended for use in general practice (in addition to the usual range of psychotherapeutic help) in the treatment of children with school refusal and neurotic disorder. Patterns of improvement were also studied for the sample as a whole irrespective of treatment. Neither age nor sex were significantly related to improvement, except on one behavioural measure where girls initially did better than boys. In addition, it was found that there was a rapid relief of depression but neurotic symptomatology tended to persist.

The extent of the similarities and discrepancies in the reporting of depressive symptomatology by children and their mothers was examined. Child-parent agreement was not always impressive, particularly for more subjective symptoms. It is suggested that direct psychiatric assessment of children provides a more accurate picture of their mental state regardless of presenting disorder, but particularly where depression is suspected.

This paper differentiates four subgroups on the basis of victim characteristics within a sample of 100 British sexually abusive male adolescents aged between 11 and 18 years. The groups were compared in terms of their background characteristics and sexually abusive behavior. Results indicated that when subgroups were delineated on the basis of victim characteristics, they could be reliably differentiated on several abuser and abuse characteristics. Findings were generally consistent with those described in the North American literature. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to etiology and to the development of a taxonomic classification system for British sexually abusive adolescents.

A comparison was made of the reliability and validity of two self-rating scales, the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) and Depression Self-Rating Scale (DSRS), in the diagnosis of depression in 93 children (aged 8–16 years) attending a university child psychiatry department. The two scales were of comparable merit but had only moderate discrimination between depressed and non-depressed children, with each scale having a misclassification rate of 25%. Better agreement was obtained in more verbally intelligent children, irrespective of age. Girls scored higher on the instruments than boys. No significant relationship was found between teacher assessment of classroom behaviour and the two self-rating depression instruments.

A personality-based taxonomy of an out-patient sample of 112 sexually abusive adolescents is described. Five subgroups were derived from cluster analytic procedures applied to Personality Patterns scales scores from the Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory (MACI), and were named: Normal, Antisocial, Submissive, Dysthymic/Inhibited, and Dysthymic/Negativistic. The groups were also found to be differentiated on the psychopathology scales of the MACI. The results of the study provide evidence of the heterogeneity of adolescent sexual abusers in both personality characteristics and psychopathology. Comparison of groups differentiated on the basis of victim characteristics did not indicate a relationship between personality and sexual offence.