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Background: Minimally adequate treatment (MAT) is intended to represent treatment minimally sufficient for common mental health problems. For children, MAT has been defined over a twelve-month period as either eight or more mental health visits, or four to seven visits plus relevant medication. MAT is used to identify those missing out on adequate care, but it is unknown whether MAT improves children's outcomes.Methods: This paper examines whether MAT is associated with improved outcomes for children. It uses survey data from the nationally representative Longitudinal Study of Australian children on 596 children with mental health problems based on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire at ages 8-15 years, linked to health service administrative data from 2012 to 2016. Statistical analysis examines the association of MAT with later quality of life (Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory), using a lagged dependent variable model to account for time-varying unobserved confounding.Results: Compared to children with lower levels of treatment, those who received MAT between baseline and follow up had no statistically significant improvement in either quality of life or mental health symptoms.Limitations: The observational data provide insight into real-world practice but require statistical methods to account for selection into treatment.Conclusions: While clinical trials show mental health treatments can be efficacious, this study shows no evidence that children receiving MAT in routine practice have better outcomes. These findings demonstrate the need for better understanding of the nature and impact of children's mental health care as it is delivered and received in routine practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Maternal mental health problems contributes significantly to perinatal morbidities and extend beyond the perinatal period for some women. Drawing data from a population-based study this paper aimed to: 1) identify patterns of maternal psychological distress spanning ten years following the birth of a baby, and 2) identify psychosocial risk factors in the first postnatal year for trajectories of elevated psychological distress.Methodology: A secondary analysis was conducted using data from 4875 mothers participating in the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. The Kessler-6 assessed maternal psychological distress symptoms when the child was 0-12 months, 2-3 years, 4-5 years, 6-7 years, 8-9 years and 10-11 years. Longitudinal latent class analyses (LCA) was conducted to identify patterns of psychological distress. Latent class membership was assigned and used in subsequent regression analyses to identify predictors of each trajectory.Results: LCA identified five distinct trajectories of maternal psychological distress symptoms over time. Predictors of trajectories with elevated symptoms reflected a pattern of social and economic disadvantage and psychosocial stress. The strongest predictors of elevated mental health symptoms were a history of depression [OR: 7.57(4.73-12.11)] and 3 or more stressful life events in the past year [OR: 3.38(2.02-5.65)].Limitations: The assessment of maternal mental health and child health was based on brief self-report measures and mothers from lower socioeconomic and diverse cultural backgrounds were underrepresented.Conclusions: These findings underscore the importance of early diagnosis and treatment of women at risk of mental health problems in the postnatal period and early years of parenting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]