Overmedicalisation of childhood: what paediatricians and child health professionals can do

In the sociological literature, medicalisation is when a problem ‘is defined in medical terms, described using medical language, understood through the adoption of a medical framework, or ‘treated’ with medical intervention’. 1 While applying a medical lens is at times appropriate to understand underlying causes of childhood behaviours, we are here focusing on medicalisation as an overextended and inappropriate phenomenon, that is, overmedicalisation. Distinguishing between these requires careful assessment.2 Child health professionals are involved in overmedicalisation’s iatrogenic effects. There are high expectations that clinicians will provide medical diagnoses and treatment for children presenting with behavioural complaints, but the complexity of family, psychosocial stress and vulnerability, which exaggerate or even cause symptoms, is often ignored. Given the lack of accessible and tailored interventions, tensions arise when a diagnostic label is sought to access substitute support, even if this does not directly meet the child and family’s core needs. Here we describe factors that perpetuate the overmedicalisation of childhood and its harms, and outline how child health practitioners and families can avoid overmedicalisation and take constructive steps moving forward.