An important question in mental healthcare for children is whether treatments are effective and safe in the long run. Here, we comment on a recent editorial perspective by Roest et al. (2022), who argue, based on an overview of systematic reviews, 'that there is no convincing evidence that interventions for the most common childhood disorders are beneficial in the long term'. We believe that the available evidence does not justify this conclusion and express our concern regarding the harmful effects of their message. We show that there is evidence to suggest beneficial longer term treatment effects for each of the disorders and explain why evidence-based treatment should be offered to children with mental disorders.
Keywords: Child psychopathology; evidence-based treatment; long-term effects; mental healthcare.
© 2022 The Authors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.