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Child/Adolescent Guidelines

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Disclaimer: The Florida Best Practices Medication Guidelines for the use of psychotropic medication in children and adolescents reflect the state of knowledge, current at the time of publication, on effective and appropriate care, as well as clinical consensus judgments when research is lacking. The inevitable changes in the state of scientific information and technology mandate that periodic review, updating, and revisions will be needed. These guidelines do not apply to all patients and each must be adapted and tailored to each individual patient. Proper use, adaptation, modifications, or decisions to disregard these or other guidelines, in whole or in part, are entirely the responsibility of the clinician who uses the guidelines. The authors bear no responsibility for the use of these guidelines by third parties.

Level Framework for Best Practice Guidelines
The panel decided to use the existing format of the Adult Florida Best Practice Guidelines, where instead of creating an algorithm where specific options were mandatory or had to be used first or diagrammatically looked like the had to be used first, the child expert panel decided to categorize options in different levels, based upon strength of science and expert consensus regarding a particular agent or treatment option. The panel weighed both safety and efficacy issues when assigning particular treatment options to a Level. Level 1 options were considered to have stronger evidence and consensus than level 2 and below. The panel chose this approach with an understanding that using a particular option in any level would depend upon clinical judgment and patient or family needs or preferences. Level 0 refers to an assessment level prior to any decisions regarding treatment options.