Transdiagnostic research: transitory or transformative?
Angelica Ronald
Abstract
Transdiagnostic is arguably one of the most ‘in vogue’ terms at the moment in child and adolescent psychiatry. A search for the word ‘transdiagnostic’ in PubMed shows an exponential increase over the last decade in medical research, with 2021 showing the highest ever use of this word. Within child and adolescent psychiatry, there are many reasons this word might be used. Conditions within child and adolescent psychiatry exist within a multi-dimensional space: they show high co-occurrence with each other; they share underlying brain and neurocognitive constructs, they share epidemiological risk factors, they share outcome pathways and they share treatments. In this editorial, I discuss transdiagnostic research, drawing on four impactful articles from the present issue of the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, and consider whether transdiagnostic research is likely, longer term, to be transitory or transformative.
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Angelica Ronald is joint editor of JCPP, handling approximately 40 manuscripts each year. She is Professor of Psychology and Genetics at Birkbeck, University of London, where she runs the Genes Environment Lifespan laboratory.