title: Syndrome co-occurrence and treatment outcomes in youth mental health clinics.
abstract: Despite widespread speculation that syndrome co-occurrence undermines treatment outcomes, this hypothesis has not been fully examined within clinical care settings. To address this gap, the authors investigated the relation between syndrome co-occurrence and outcome among 325 clinically referred youths. For every syndrome, higher initial severity was predictive of greater treatment gains and higher posttreatment symptom levels; contrary to speculation in the literature, co-occurrence effects were rare and modest in size, accounting for 0.6% of outcome variance on average. The results suggest that co-occurrence, though common in youth clinical care, is not an obstacle to treatment success in most cases. In addition to its substantive findings, the study illustrates how a dimensional approach can be used to shed new light on co-occurrence in clinical care.
authors.affiliation: Department of Educational Psychology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77845, USA. ajensendoss@coe.tamu.edu
authors.forename: Amanda Jensen
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Doss
authors.forename: John R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Weisz
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000553:Ambulatory Care; D002648:Child; D015897:Comorbidity; D003863:Depression / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy; D008605:Mental Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011613:Psychotherapy