ESCAP statement on the care for children and adolescents with gender dysphoria: an urgent need for safeguarding clinical, scientific, and ethical standards, (2024). Drobnič Radobuljac M., Groselj U., Kaltiala R., the ESCAP Policy Division, the ESCAP Board

(https://www.researchgate.net/publication/380152228_ESCAP_statement_on_the_care_for_children_and_adolescents_with_gender_dysphoria_an_urgent_need_for_safeguarding_clinical_scientific_and_ethical_standards)

Abstract

ESCAP firmly believes that there is an urgent need to apply widely endorsed clinical, scientific, and ethical standards to the care of children and adolescents with gender dysphoria. It is important to base decisions for possible medical transitions on a rigorous assessment of individual needs and their capacity to consent regarding the serious long-term consequences of these treatments. Long-term follow-up studies are urgently needed to better understand both the natural course of gender dysphoria in the absence of medical treatment and the consequences of medical transition. A clinical research framework with patient and public involvement should be established and promoted at the European level to facilitate relevant research. The standards of evidence-based medicine must ensure the best and safest possible care for each individual in this highly vulnerable group of children and adolescents. As such, ESCAP calls for healthcare providers not to promote experimental and unnecessarily invasive treatments with unproven psycho social effects and, therefore, to adhere to the "primum-nil nocere" (first, do no harm) principle. Finally, ESCAP insists that respect for all kinds of different views and attitudes is an essential part of an ongoing open professional debate that we wish to stimulate.

Citation: Drobnič Radobuljac, M., Grošelj, U., Kaltiala, R., ESCAP Policy Division, ESCAP Board, Vermeiren, R., Crommen, S., Kotsis, K., Danese, A., Hoekstra, P. J., & Fegert, J. M. (2024). ESCAP statement on the care for children and adolescents with gender dysphoria: an urgent need for safeguarding clinical, scientific, and ethical standards. European child & adolescent psychiatry, 10.1007/s00787-024-02440-8. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-024-02440-8