quality:correction, linguistic:voice_change, structural:expansion, structural:scholar_edition
Assessment

The psychiatric assessment of a child or adolescent starts with obtaining a psychiatric history by interviewing the young person and his/her parents or caregivers. The assessment includes a detailed exploration of the current concerns about the child's emotional or behavioral problems, the child's physical health and development, history of parental care (including possible abuse and neglect), family relationships and history of parental mental illness. It is regarded as desirable to obtain information from multiple sources (for example both parents, or a parent and a grandparent) as informants may give widely differing accounts of the child's problems. Collateral information is usually obtained from the child's school with regards to academic performance, peer relationships, and behavior in the school environment.