Psychosocial coping in young adulthood of male child psychiatric outpatients: implications of early treatment.

The frequencies of new psychiatric diagnoses received during compulsory military service among a group of 534 former child psychiatric patients were studied with regard to the earlier clinic experience. The nature of the former patients' contact with the clinic was the strongest predictor of a subsequent diagnosis. Risk was lowest for those who had received a systematic course of therapy in childhood, and matched that of a control group of conscripts with no history of psychiatric contact.