Screening for depression in children and adolescents: a protocol for a systematic review update

Abstract

Background Major depressive disorder is common, debilitating, and affects feelings, thoughts, mood, and behaviors. Childhood and adolescence are critical periods for the development of depression and adolescence is marked by an increased incidence of mental health disorders. This protocol outlines the planned scope and methods for a systematic review update that will evaluate the benefits and harms of screening for depression in children and adolescents. Methods This review will update a previously published systematic review by Roseman and colleagues. Eligible studies are randomized controlled trials (RCTs) assessing formal screening in primary care to identify children or adolescents not already self-reporting symptoms of, diagnosed with, or treated for depression. If no or only a single RCT is available, we will consider controlled studies without random assignment. Studies of participants with characteristics associated with an elevated risk of depression will be analyzed separately. Outcomes of interest are symptoms of depression, classification of major depressive disorder based on a validated diagnostic interview, suicidality, health-related quality of life, social function, impact on lifestyle behavior (e.g., substance use, school performance, lost time at work, or school), false-positive results, overdiagnosis, overtreatment, labeling, and other harms such as those arising from treatment. We will search MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, CINAHL, the Cochrane Library, and grey literature sources. Two reviewers will independently screen the titles and abstracts using the liberal accelerated method. Full-text screening will be performed independently by two reviewers using pre-specified eligibility criteria. Data extraction and risk of bias assessments will be performed independently by two reviewers. Pre-planned analyses, including subgroup and sensitivity analyses, are detailed within this protocol. Two independent reviewers will assess and finalize through consensus the certainty of evidence using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach, and prepare GRADE evidence profiles and summary of findings tables for each outcome of interest. Discussion The systematic review will provide a current state of the evidence of benefits and harms of depression screening in children and adolescents. These findings will be used by the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care to inform the development of recommendations on depression screening. Systematic review registration PROSPERO CRD42020150373

The Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic on Mental Health in Children with Primary Immunodeficiency

“…This may result of a better perception to understand what is happening around them due to increase in their mental capacity with age. Environmental factors such as school-related problems, difficulties in relationships with peers, learning difficulties, decreased sleep quality, tendency to unhealthy diet, increased screen time may also be risk factors for increased frequency of depression during adolescence (23). It has been reported that children with long-term health problems have a higher risk for depression (24).…”

Screening for depression in children and adolescents in primary care or non-mental health settings: a systematic review update

“…A protocol for the review was published [ 44 ] and registered with the PROSPERO database (CRD42020150373) and was made available on the Open Science Framework ( https://osf.io/h5nbp/ ). Details on how eligibility criteria and outcomes were determined can be found in the protocol [ 44 ]. Any materials used in the review can be found on the Open Science Framework.…”

“…As described in our study protocol [ 44 ], we planned to extract data from the included studies, perform risk of bias assessments, conduct analyses, and assess the certainty of the evidence if any studies met our inclusion criteria. However, despite our comprehensive search strategy, we were unable to identify any eligible studies on depression screening in children and adolescents.…”

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“…Indeed, depression is one of the most common mental health problems in children and adolescents and mainly manifests as a persistent decline in academic performance, feelings of worthlessness, difficulty in making friends, and poor sleep quality [ 5 , 6 ]. Depression is very common among adolescents and affects adolescents’ interpersonal relationships, academic performance, and hobbies as well as their physical and mental health; severe depression may even be life-threatening [ 7 ]. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among children and adolescents, and depression is the leading cause of suicide among adolescents.…”