NCJ Number
224227
Journal
Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Volume: 47 Issue: 9 Dated: September 2008 Pages: 1010-1019
Date Published
September 2008
Length
10 pages
Annotation
A meta-analysis was conducted of research on the prevalence of mental disorders among adolescents in juvenile detention and correctional facilities.
Abstract
The study found that adolescents in detention and correctional facilities were approximately 10 times more likely to suffer from psychosis than the general adolescent population. Girls were more often diagnosed with major depression than were boys, contrary to findings from adult prisoners and general population surveys. Among boys, 3.3 percent were diagnosed with psychotic illness, 10.6 percent with major depression, 11.7 percent with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and 52.8 percent with conduct disorder. Metaregression suggested that surveys which used the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children yielded lower prevalence estimates for depression, ADHD, and conduct disorder; whereas, studies with psychiatrists acting as interviewers had lower prevalence estimates only for depression. Twenty-five surveys that involved 13,778 boys and 2,972 girls met criteria for inclusion in the meta-analysis. Surveys of psychiatric morbidity based on interviews of unselected populations of detained children and adolescents were identified by computer-assisted searches, scanning of reference lists, hand-searching of journals, and correspondence with authors of relevant reports. The gender-specific prevalence of mental disorders (psychotic illness, major depression, ADHD, and conduct disorder), together with potentially moderating study characteristics, were abstracted from publications. Statistical analysis involved metaregression in order to identify possible causes of differences in disorder prevalence across surveys. 1 figure and 3 references