Where angels fear to tread: Issues in sampling, design, and implementation of school-based mental health services research.

Research on school-based mental health systems is an important but hazardous enterprise. Current trends suggest that child mental health professionals will increasingly focus on community service systems that are family-based and school-centered. Challenges to conducting research on effectiveness of such services include underidentification of children with emotional or behavioral disorders, lack of concordance between diagnostic criteria used in school vs mental health systems, problems of comorbidity, analysis of data from multiple informants, lack of interdisciplinary or interagency collaboration, community involvement, and a variety of other factors. These issues and suggestions for addressing them are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)