It took approximately forty years for child and adolescent psychiatry to be acknowledged and become functional as a medical science in Turkey. The first child and adolescent psychiatry department/unit was established in1959, in Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine, and the other centers followed thereafter. The Ministry of Health of Turkey accepted child and adolescent psychiatry as a medical science and a separate specialty and established curriculum for specialty training in 1990.
The Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Department had been a unit under the Psychiatry Department for many years in Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine and it transformed to a separate specialty and department in 1995.
The Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Hacettepe University is located on the fourth floor of the Children’s Hospital and has only an outpatient clinic. Patients who need hospitalization are admitted to the pediatric or psychiatric inpatient units. We also provide services for consultation liaison psychiatry. Each year we see nearly 7000 patients.
The Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Hacettepe Universty offers complete postgraduate training in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Entry to the postgraduate training program in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry is through a medical specialty examination. The duration of the specialty training program is 4 years and there are two mandatory training rotations; 12 months of adult psychiatry and 3 months of pediatric neurology rotations.
There is a well structured postgraduate specialty training program that has to be followed by every postgraduate resident/trainee.
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry should not only be interested in biological and psychological aspects, but also behavioral and social aspects of the psychiatric diseases and from this point it also works for education about and prevention of mental diseases. By viewing both these aspects, it would provide better education and aid in the prevention of mental diseases. It’s not hard to understand the importance of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry since half the population consists of children and adolescents in Turkey and healthy society could only be possible with mentally healthy individuals.
There are daily educational activities at the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Department. Educational hours involve journal and book reading for continuous publication follow up, case presentations, seminars, supervisions for video recordings, meetings for discussion of different social issues and daily events.
At the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Department in Hacettepe University, there are prioritizing and leading studies including studies for children with bipolar affective disorder, group psychotherapies by using the psychodramatic technique, studies related to psychosocial aspects of intersex, studies approaching to the adolescence period as a specific period of child psychiatry and evaluate psychopathologic aspects of the puberty, studies about factors effecting identity development of Turkish adolescents, studies about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism.
Besides theoretical and applied training about fundamental subjects of psychiatry, there are seminars, case presentations, supervisions, consultation liaison services, and opportunities for individual psychotherapy, play therapy, group therapy with psychodramatic technique, family therapy and forensic psychiatry training. Furthermore, our department also provides social work services, consultancy services for national projects to develop strategies for children, educational consultancy for schools, intellectual assessment and preventative mental health services for the society.