A metareview of adverse effects of 80 psychotropic drugs in children and adolescents finds five drugs that appear to have the best safety profile — and also nominates those with the poorest safety.

In what is claimed to be the largest and most comprehensive evidence synthesis on the topic, international researchers scoured the literature on four major drug classes — antidepressants, antipsychotics, drugs for ADHD and mood stabilisers — looking for reports of 78 prespecifed adverse events.