TITLE:
Can Youth Health Care Scans at the Age of Five Discriminate between Adolescent Psychiatric Inpatients with Severe Disruptive Behavior and a Non-Treatment Group?
AUTHORS:
Sjoukje Berdina Beike de Boer, Albert Eduard Boon, Anna Marte de Haan
KEYWORDS:
Adolescent Psychiatry; Life-Course-Persistent; Antisocial Behavior; Youth Health Care Files
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.4 No.10,
October
30,
2013
ABSTRACT: The aim
of the study was to examine whether adolescent psychiatric inpatients (n = 24)
with severe disruptive behavior could be discriminated from a control sample (n
= 41) based on information about disruptive behavior recorded early in their
lives. Remarks by teachers and health professionals made in youth health care
files when the respondents were five years of age were used. Both teachers and
professionals made significantly more remarks regarding disruptive behavior in
the files of the future patients. The files of the patients also contained more
remarks about other behavior. The sensitivity and specificity of behavior at
the age of five to predict future treatment was satisfactory. The majority of
the inpatients belonged to the prototypical life-course-persistent group that
is known from epidemiological studies.