Challenges for Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Research in COVID-19 Era
Written by: Deborah A. Pearson, PhD
In a recent article, Drs. Michael Aman (Ohio State University) and Deborah Pearson (University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston) present an editorial suggesting that COVID-19 is being highly disruptive to child and adolescent psychiatric research. School closures, loss of numerous special educational supports, social isolation, and upheaval of family dynamics caused by loss of daily routines, unemployment or job insecurity, and loss of extended family members, have radically disrupted the lives of many children participating in psychiatric research. Regrettably, such disruptions likely have increased research “noise” (variability having nothing to do with study treatments or the normal course of life).
Aman and Pearson encourage psychiatric researchers to document all suspended and newly initiated treatments—potential confounds—in children under study. They also call for studies to report whether participants were involved before, during, or after COVID-19’s onset (or to present the relevant mix of exposures relative to COVID-19’s “waves”). The effects of the disruptions to research will echo for many years, especially for protocols that were in the process of data collection and thus had to amend their procedures in midstream. Researchers are encouraged to be exceptionally candid in disclosing COVID-19 interference with their study designs. They are also urged to develop a common culture for classifying study confounds, to consider merging databases across sites where feasible, and to consider highly flexible approaches in probing study results. Finally, reviewers and editors are encouraged to be more flexible in dealing with COVID-19 era study reports.
In summary, there is an enormous amount of psychiatric research underway in this COVID-19 era. Although early eradication of the coronavirus is desired, its ultimate duration is unknown and the reality is that it may be unwelcome presence for quite some time. Our mission as child and adolescent psychiatric researchers will be to derive the maximum amount of information possible from research carried out during this pandemic.