Cardiovascular monitoring of children and adolescents receiving psychotropic drugs: A statement for healthcare professionals from the Committee on Congenital Cardiac Defects, Council on Cardiovascular Disease in the Young, American Heart Association.

Overview Reports of sudden deaths of children and adolescents treated with psychotropic medications have raised concerns regarding the appropriateness of this therapy, as well as the advisability of baseline and periodic electrocardiographic (ECG) monitoring of such patients.1–4 What follows is a review of the drug effects on the ECG, cardiovascular effects of the commonly used psychotropic medications in children and adolescents, a summary of potentially dangerous drug interactions, and recommendations for cardiovascular monitoring.