This is a clinical trial examining the efficacy and safety of quetiapine (Seroquel ®) for children and adolescents with either bipolar I disorder (acute mania), or schizophrenia.
Subjects are recruited from the inpatient psychiatry units, the emergency department, or the outpatient clinics at The Children's Hospital. Each subject requires a standardized psychiatric interview to carefully assess all clinical symptomatology, utilizing the Kiddie-SADS-PL. Subjects also receive standardized ratings of their symptoms on a weekly basis. The bipolar trial lasts three weeks; the schizophrenia trial lasts six weeks. Patients from either trial are eligible for a 26-week, open-label study, where they receive weekly ratings of symptoms and side effects.
Students will first need to attend the CoMIRB research training course to become familiarized with ethical and practical issues regarding clinical research. They then would be encouraged to learn the interview and rating scales, and to perform these with study personnel. Students will get a good exposure to issues involved with clinical research including recruitment and screening issues, standardized assessments, and management of patients on protocols. They will also get to interview a number of interesting child and adolescent patients and their parents.