The "task force offered an important caveat," however, and that is that "screening made sense only if the children then had access to...specialized and individualized care."

The panel also found that "psychotherapy ought to be the first line of treatment for all adolescents with depression, rather than antidepressant" medications. Psychiatrist Steven Hyman, MD, "former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, said he sided with the recommendations of the Preventive Services Task Force in that he thought that mental-health screening for children should be limited to depression, and limited to adolescents."

Dr. Hyman stated that "screening made sense only for conditions that were widespread, where tests were accurate, where treatments available, where the costs of administration were not prohibitive, and where the screening techniques did not lead to large numbers of normal children getting misdiagnosed, and large numbers of children with real disorders getting missed."

Related Links:

- "The Depression Test," Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post, May 26, 2009.