Co-Occurring Disorders Among Mentally Ill Jail Detainees

• NCJ Number: 134839
• Journal: American Psychologist Volume: 46 Issue: 10 Dated: (October 1991) Pages: 1036-1045
• Author(s): K M Abram; L A Teplin
• Date Published: 1991
• Length: 10 pages
• Grant Number(s): MH37988; AA05884; 87-IJ-CX-0033
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)

Annotation

Data on the co-occurrence of severe mental disorders, substance abuse, and antisocial personality disorders were collected on 728 male detainees, randomly selected directly from pretrial arraignment at the Cook County Department of Corrections in Chicago.

Abstract

The subjects were interviewed by clinical psychologists; diagnostic assessments were made using the National Institute of Mental Health Diagnostic Interview Schedule. The results, based on difference of proportion tests and loglinear analysis, showed that most subjects with a severe mental disorder including schizophrenia or a major affective disorder also met the criteria for a substance abuse or antisocial personality disorder. Because possible and mild disorders were scored as nondisordered, these results provided a conservative estimate of the true prevalence of severely ill detainees with additional disorders. The authors conclude that better treatment of codisordered detainees requires mental health policy development in three areas including improved treatment of the codisordered when they are in crisis, improved jail identification of and response to codisordered mentally ill inmates, and development of community treatment facilities to address the needs of the codisordered mentally ill. 4 tables and 98 references