Can Youth Health Care Scans at the Age of Five Discriminate between Adolescent Psychiatric Inpatients with Severe Disruptive Behavior and a Non-Treatment Group?

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.