CORE--CLINICAL

New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York NY

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

DESCRIPTION: Since its inception in 1989, the Clinical Core has been a key component in the Clinical Research Center to study Depression, Anxiety, and Suicide-Related Disorders. The Clinical Core?s principal activity was to assist therapeutic trials. These activities will remain essentially unchanged in the proposed Intervention Center, since they are ideally suited to its focus. The proposed Core has been designed to provide an infrastructure to foster the development and execution of clinical trials. The program of therapeutic studies of child and adolescent psychiatric disorders at Columbia University/New York State Psychiatric Institute is a large one and includes psychopharmacological and psychotherapy studies in most of the common disorders of childhood, including anxiety, mood, eating, disruptive-behavior disorders, ADHD, and early-onset schizophrenia. The feasibility and quality of these studies can be greatly assisted by the services that the Clinical Core will provide, which will include: Systematic and centralized patient recruitment (from clinical outpatient services, from respondents to advertisements and other activities that publicize the Core, and from the Department?s school-based screening and outreach efforts; State-of-the-art diagnostic assessments; An efficient data-management system that matches screened individuals to available protocols and provides a database for present collaborations and future follow-up studies; and Clinical care after the experimental phase of treatment has been completed. The clinical Core will also foster the development of clinical researchers. It will offer child psychiatry research trainees from the Research Training Program (5T32 MH16434) an opportunity to participate in numerous and varied clinical trials. It will interface closely with clinical staff and trainees and expose them to therapeutic research. In the past the Core has attracted clinical trainees into research. The Core?s interface with clinical services also provides a way to conduct efficacy studies in the real-world clinical setting and reduces competition for patients between research and clinical services. To the above ends, the Clinical Core has been designed to: Systematically assess large numbers of children and adolescents using state-of-the-art clinical procedures. The Core will determine suitability for protocol research, introduce children and their parents to research opportunities, and establish a systematic database to serve as a basis for additional studies; Ascertain and coordinate investigators? interests, and thus maximize the variety of interventions that are investigated and minimize unhelpful competition between researchers studying similar patients; 3. Facilitate the smooth transition from efficacy to effectiveness research; and Enhance opportunities for the development of clinical researchers in child psychiatry.