Page 71 - Age of onset of disruptive behavior of residentially treated adolescents -Sjoukje de Boer
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no reliable change, and deteriorated). No significant changes were found over time (χ2 6, N=145) = 5.72, p=.46).
Table 4
Comparison between EO and AO groups of clinically significant change between admission and discharge on the SCL-90-R total-scores
4
Change from pre- to posttreatment
SCL-90-R total score Recovered
Improved
No reliable change Deteriorated
Total
EO AO Total χ 2(df), p
Outcome n
24 28.2 15 25.0 39 26.9
%n %
n %
2.8 (3), .42
24 28.2 22 13 15.3 12 24 28.2 11 85 100.0 60
36.7
20.0
18.3
100.0 145 100.0
46 31.7 25 17.2 35 24.1
df = degree of freedom; SCL-90-R = Symptom Checklist 90 Revised; EO = early-onset; AO = adolescent-onset
When the EO and AO groups were considered separately, both groups showed similar percentages of reported improvement or recovery. This was confirmed by the TOR-J results of the parents, which showed that according to parents, 71.4% of the EO group (score ≥ 6) and 68.3% of the AO group improved. Because not all parents had returned the TOR-J questionnaires, chi-square analysis was performed to verify whether the ones returned came predominantly from one parent group (e.g., AO group) versus the other (e.g., EO group). Significantly more TOR-J questionnaires came from parents of the AL group (p=.036); 69.5% of the parents of the AO group returned the TOR-J questionnaire compared to 51.9% of the parents of the EO group.
Discussion
The purpose of this study was to examine treatment outcome of adolescent inpatients with EO and AO disruptive behavior. Based on epidemiological research, individuals on the LCP pathway were suggested to be ‘therapy-resistant’ (Moffitt, 1993, 2003; Moffitt et al., 1996) or in need of more intensive intervention (Moffitt et al., 2008). However, these assumptions have never been tested in clinical practice. Therefore, it was hypothesized that adolescent inpatients with AO disruptive behavior would have better treatment outcome than those with EO disruptive behavior. Our study showed that EO youths tended to end treatment prematurely more often than
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