Shapiro S, Shapiro M F
J Community Health. 1987 Spring;12(1):23-30. doi: 10.1007/BF01321394.
The health care needs of prisoners often are not systematically addressed. To evaluate the ability of a questionnaire, that is administered at the time of arrest, to identify inmates' medical problems and to predict subsequent use of care, we reviewed and analyzed medical records and questionnaires for 594 individuals incarcerated in a county jail. Only 54% of subjects had a completed questionnaire filed in a medical record; the questionnaire identified only 48% of persons who eventually sought care for such major problems as drug and alcohol abuse and cardiopulmonary disease. No question screened for psychiatric problems, even though five percent of subjects were diagnosed as having major psychiatric disorders during their incarcerations. On the other hand, many items addressed problems that were far less common. Uniform screening of prison populations may be effective if conducted with greater rigor and better instruments than were employed in the institution studied. Health care for inmates might be served better by universal screening and follow-up, targeted to such important problems as drug and alcohol abuse and psychiatric disorders.
囚犯的医疗保健需求往往没有得到系统解决。为了评估一份在逮捕时发放的问卷识别囚犯医疗问题以及预测后续医疗使用情况的能力，我们查阅并分析了某县监狱594名被监禁人员的医疗记录和问卷。只有54%的受试者的病历中存有完整的问卷；该问卷仅识别出最终因药物和酒精滥用以及心肺疾病等重大问题而寻求治疗的人员中的48%。尽管有5%的受试者在监禁期间被诊断患有重度精神障碍，但问卷中没有筛查精神问题的项目。另一方面，许多项目涉及的问题远没有那么常见。如果采用比所研究机构更严格的方法和更好的工具进行统一筛查，对监狱人群进行筛查可能会有效。对囚犯的医疗保健通过针对药物和酒精滥用以及精神障碍等重要问题进行普遍筛查和随访可能会得到更好的服务。
