Prevalence of mental disorders in the male juvenile detention centers of Hunan and Sichuan.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the prevalence of mental health problems in male violent offenders of Hunan and Sichuan Provinces; and to compare the types and severity of problems between the violent and nonviolent offenders.

METHODS

Ninety-one violent juvenile offenders and 64 nonviolent juvenile offenders in the juvenile detention centers of Hunan, and 81 violent juvenile offenders in the juvenile detention centers of Sichuan; 39 high school students from a middle school of Hunan Province and 49 from a middle school of Sichuan Province were investigated using the Investigation Screening Inventory for Child Mental Disorder and the Kiddy Schedule for Affective Diseases and Schizophrenia (K-SADS-PL), and classified according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

RESULTS

In the Hunan violent group, 86.6% met the criterion of conduct disorder (CD), 17.6% of substance abuse, 9.9% of substance dependence, while in the Hunan nonviolent group, 75.0% met the criterion of CD, and 11.7% of substance abuse; these were all significantly higher than those of the control group (P<0.05). In the Sichuan violent group, 17.3% met the criterion of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), 18.5% of oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), 69.1% of CD, and 22.2% of substance abuse; these were all significantly higher than those of the Sichuan control group. Moreover, 63.7% of Hunan-violent, 55.6% of Sichuan-violent, and 45.0% of Hunan-nonviolent offenders had a previous offence records.

CONCLUSION

Mental and behavioral disorders among delinquent youth is becoming a serious problem, and there is an urgent need to develop and implement effective assessment and treatment approaches for juvenile offenders with the aim of reducing offence and recidivism in this population.