Editorial: Trials and tribulations in child psychology and psychiatry: what is needed for evidence-based practice

If your child had leukaemia you would be distraught. Yet, there would also be hope. Most children with a diagnosis of leukaemia start their treatment as part of ongoing trials. The clinical teams looking after such children are motivated, knowledgeable and work in centres that specialise in the treatment of this lethal illness. The results speak for themselves. Not only have the trials helped oncologists learn more about which treatments work best. For years we have known that those who enter trials do better than those patients with similar characteristics who don't. We have recently also learnt that trials improve survival rates in those cancers population wide: the annual reduction between 1978-2005 in risk of death from childhood cancers ranged from 2.7% to 12.0%. This cancer trial culture is a splendid example of British health care delivery. What is happening in child psychiatry, though? If your child had, say, depression you would have every reason to be distraught too. The mortality rate is higher than in the general population and the burden of disease in the long run heavier than that of cardiovascular illness or cancer. Yet, your child would not have access to a trial. Instead, you would probably struggle to have your child's depression recognised in the first place. The care you would get would be determined by extreme regional variations and by what resources are available to local services and often the ideology or preferences of practitioners.