JCPP advances最新文献

This Editorial introduces the March 2026 issue of JCPP Advances, marking the journal's sixth year with 15 impactful articles spanning key topics in child and adolescent mental health. A recurring theme across several articles is the investigation of emotional challenges-encompassing depression, anxiety, and self-harm-particularly in the context of neurodivergence. These articles advance understanding of candidate cognitive-affective drivers of emotional challenges, emphasise the role of social and contextual factors, and highlight the importance of research employing a transdiagnostic approach and informed by lived experience. Here, we underscore critical implications for assessment, prevention, and intervention, and reflect on outstanding challenges and future directions for research and clinical practice.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1002/jcv2.12295.].

Background: Depression levels increase dramatically during adolescence in the general population. This effect is exacerbated in adolescents with a diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, or both. Here we detail the protocol for the My Emotions and Me Over Time (MEMO) study, a 12-month longitudinal study with the primary aim to compare two competing hypotheses for why this is the case. The first, established hypothesis is that depression risk associated with ADHD and/or autism is mediated by emotion regulation deficits (ERD). The second and new perspective is that it is mediated by the experience of elevated emotional burden (EB) created by (i) greater exposure to upsetting events and encounters, which are (ii) experienced more intensely. Cross-lagged path models will test the relative importance of the ERD and EB pathways to the relationship between autism and ADHD traits and depression symptoms. Exploratory analyses examining secondary mediators (i.e., self-esteem) and moderators (rumination, resilience and alexithymia) will also be conducted.

Methods: A sample of 600 adolescents aged 11-16 years, enriched for the presence of autism and ADHD diagnosed cases, and their parent/guardian will be recruited via schools, local NHS (South London and Maudsley) and ADHD and autism charities. Measures of ADHD, autism and depression, ERD, EB, self-esteem, rumination, resilience and alexithymia will be completed at baseline, 6 months and/or 12 months by parents and/or participants. Background factors such as age, sex, cognitive abilities and socioeconomic status as well as service use and medication status will also be collected.

Results: The pathways between ADHD/autism and depression, along with their mediators and moderators, will be analysed using structural equation modelling.

Conclusion: The findings from MEMO will feed into the other studies within the RE-STAR programme to support the development of an intervention to reduce ADHD and/or autism-related depression risk in adolescence.

As JCPP Advances marks its fifth anniversary, this editorial highlights the need for continued and expanded research on females with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Despite growing recognition of sex differences in ADHD presentation, diagnosis, and outcomes, females remain underrepresented in both research and clinical contexts. Drawing on several studies published in this issue, this editorial synthesizes important findings regarding ADHD symptom severity, ADHD-related impact, and associations with emotional difficulties in females with ADHD. Additional adequately-powered and developmentally informed studies are needed to elucidate mechanisms, moderators, and resilience promoting factors in females with ADHD across the lifespan. We look forward to seeing more research on this and other pressing topics facing child and adolescent mental health within the pages of JCPP Advances as we look forward to the next 5 years.

Background: Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is common in children and adolescents, and if not successfully treated, has negative consequences for their current and subsequent mental health. Whilst psychological therapies have previously been assessed in terms of their efficacy for a combination of anxiety disorders, no existing systematic reviews have evaluated GAD in isolation.

Methods: To address this gap, a systematic review was undertaken in line with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidance to explore the outcomes of psychological therapies for youth with a clinician-assessed diagnosis of primary GAD. Searches of three databases (PsycINFO, Medline, and Embase) and two registers (Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and ClinicalTrials) were conducted on 25th June 2024, and updated on 10th June 2025. Randomised controlled trials were eligible if they were published in a peer-reviewed journal after 1994, and if data were available for children and adolescents with primary GAD only. We applied few exclusion criteria, with no limitations regarding treatment format, duration, or degree of therapist involvement.

Results: Initial searches identified 7705 articles, but sufficient data were available for only 6 studies (n = 217 participants). Due to high heterogeneity, results were synthesised narratively rather than statistically. Evidence was limited in its quality and quantity, with few trials reporting outcomes or able to provide data at the level of individual anxiety disorders. Five studies reported higher rates of recovery in treatment groups relative to waitlist, and one reported greater remission for the control psychotherapy relative to a novel intervention. Given the lack of evidence, we were unable to assess cost-effectiveness or the effects of therapeutic approach, age, depressive symptoms, or treatment adaptations for neurodevelopmental conditions.

Conclusions: Psychological interventions may increase chances of remission for youth with GAD relative to no treatment, but the magnitude of the improvement is unknown. Further research and better data sharing practices are needed to determine which interventions are associated with the best treatment outcomes, and to identify for whom and under which circumstances they are most effective.

Trial registration: This review was pre-registered on PROSPERO (CRD42024557665; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=557665).

Background: This study explored adolescent's mental health trajectories over the course of a school-based mindfulness-based intervention trial (MYRIAD). It examined whether intervention condition (mindfulness vs. teaching-as-usual), individual-level and contextual-level factors were associated with different trajectories.

Methods: This pre-registered study used data from 11- to 14-year-olds who participated in the MYRIAD trial. We used growth mixture models to examine distinct trajectories in risk for depression, social-emotional-behavioural functioning, and wellbeing (co-primary outcomes), and anxiety (secondary outcome), across pre-intervention, post-intervention and 12-month follow up (ns = 7198-7727). We then used multinomial and binomial logistic regression models to examine factors associated with individual trajectory membership.

Results: Distinct trajectories emerged for each outcome: A five-trajectory model best explained the changes in risk for depression, whilst four-trajectory models best explained changes in social-emotional-behavioural functioning, wellbeing, and anxiety. While 69%-80% of adolescents followed stable low-problem trajectories for each outcome, 11%-23% experienced stable high-problem trajectories, 2%-16% experienced increasing-problem trajectories and 1%-5% experienced decreasing-problem trajectories. Receiving the mindfulness intervention was not associated with any mental health trajectory in models adjusted for confounders. Several individual-level factors, including executive functioning difficulties and risk of mental health problems at baseline, and school-level factors, such as school climate, predicted adolescents' classification into different trajectories, but they did not vary according to intervention group.

Conclusions: Individual differences in mental health trajectories emerged over the course of a 1-year mindfulness-based intervention, with most adolescents experiencing low-stable problem trajectories for each outcome. However, the intervention itself had no impact on individual trajectory membership, mirroring null results found in the main trial. Our findings suggest that universal interventions may not be sensitive enough to address the diverse needs of all students, however, tailoring interventions to address a range of different individual and contextual factors might maximise their impact.

In this editorial, we reflect on a milestone year for JCPP Advances, marked by our first Journal Impact Factor and significant growth in submissions, readership, and citations. We highlight expanded editorial expertise, strengthened commitments to open science, and new initiatives such as Registered Reports. Recent indexing across PsycINFO, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science enhances our global visibility. The September 2025 issue exemplifies our dedication to rigorous, impactful research, including evidence syntheses, participatory studies, and methodological innovation. Together, these developments position JCPP Advances as a leading open-access platform advancing child and adolescent mental health research worldwide.

Background: Umbrella reviews, or overviews of reviews, synthesize information using systematic reviews (SRs) as their unit of analysis. Although a formal guideline exists for reporting umbrella reviews of healthcare interventions (i.e. Preferred Reporting Items for Overviews of Reviews [PRIOR]), no formal guideline exists for conducting and/or reporting umbrella reviews of observational studies that examine epidemiological associations.

Objective: To review the existing guidance on conducting and/or reporting umbrella reviews of observational studies on epidemiological associations, as part of the process of developing a formal reporting guideline.

Methods: We reviewed the scoping review conducted in the context of PRIOR development and identified documents through forward citation search in PubMed, Scopus, and manual search in Google Scholar, Google Search up to December 22, 2024. Documents, regardless of format, were included if they provided guidance for conducting and/or reporting umbrella reviews of observational studies (including meta-research studies of their features). Title/abstract screening and data extraction were performed independently and in duplicate and summarized narratively by stages of the umbrella review process.

Results: The search retrieved 4491 unique records, with 96 full texts assessed and eight documents included. These documents, published between 2014 and 2023, offered guidance across seven topic areas, but overall guidance on conducting and/or reporting is limited. These areas include the answerable questions, prerequisite considerations, the scope of umbrella reviews, searching for SRs, primary data collection, analysis, presentation, and assessing the certainty/quality of the body of evidence.

Conclusion: There is a need for dedicated, practical, and evidence-based formal reporting guidelines for umbrella reviews of observational studies on epidemiological associations. This review lays the groundwork for developing the PRIOR-extension for such studies: the Preferred Reporting Items for Umbrella Reviews of Cross-sectional, Case-control, and Cohort Studies.

Background: Sleep and behavioral regulation are both vital for early healthy development. Yet, little is known about the relative contribution of genetic and environmental factors to early sleep and regulatory behaviors, or how these etiological influences may change during the first months of life.

Methods: Genetic and environmental influences on sleep, settle, and crying behaviors at 2 and 5 months were examined in 998 twins, using a classical twin design. In addition, polygenic scores were derived for a range of sleep behaviors, as well as psychiatric and neurodevelopmental conditions.

Results: Genetic influences (A) explained a large part of the variation in duration of crying at both 2 and 5 months (A = 0.29-0.70) and in settle ability at 5 months (A = 0.51-0.67). Shared environment (C) primarily influenced number of wakeups per night at both ages (C = 0.61-0.90) and settle ability at 2 months (C = 0.36-0.65). Longitudinal analyses suggested modest shared genetic influence on settle ability in the daytime across the ages (24%), and non-significant shared genetic estimates for ability to settle in the evening and at nighttime. There was moderate shared influence of shared environmental factors on number of wakeups per night (56%) and modest but significant shared genetic influence on crying duration in the evening and nighttime (17%-33%). Unique environmental effects were mostly specific to each age. Finally, autism polygenic score associated with longer crying duration in the evening at 2 months (β = 0.16, p = .002).

Conclusions: Etiological influences tended to change from 2 to 5 months, reflecting a highly plastic period in infant brain development and in child-environment interactions.

Background: Schools are key for identifying challenges faced by young people who self-harm (SH). Understanding how school factors influence SH predictors is essential for developing effective school-based interventions. We aimed to conduct a secondary data analysis using the OxWell Student Survey to identify associations between young people's school experiences and SH.

Methods: Using cross-sectional data from English secondary schools in the 2023 OxWell Student Survey, we conducted multi-level logistic regressions to analyse whether SH was associated with student age, gender, mental health (RCADS) and wellbeing (sWEMWBS). School experience measures included enjoyment, bullying, racism, extracurricular activities, school worry, and adults listening.

Results: Individual students' perception that the school did not deal well with bullying were associated with a 38% increase in SH (OR = 1.38; CI 1.20-1.59) and schools not dealing well with racism was associated with a 20% increase in the likelihood of SH (OR = 1.20; CI 1.04-1.38). Similarly, the likelihood of SH was 30% higher in schools with students feeling unfairly picked on by their teacher (OR = 1.30; CI 1.14-1.47). Greater SH was associated with being female (OR = 1.15; CI 0.99-1.32), gender diverse (OR = 3.49; CI 2.38-5.12), or preferring not to say (OR = 2.02; CI 1.44-2.83) compared to males. Lower wellbeing scores (OR = 0.93; CI 0.93-0.95) and higher RCADS scores (OR = 1.12; CI 1.11-1.13) were also linked to higher SH likelihood.

Conclusion: Interventions that address bullying, racism, teacher-pupil relationships as well as providing specific support for more vulnerable groups such as females and gender diverse young people are important components of public mental health interventions that might reduce levels of SH. Future research should explore these relationships longitudinally.