Page 94 - Age of onset of disruptive behavior of residentially treated adolescents -Sjoukje de Boer

Abstract
Objective: As follow-up research focuses predominantly on patients who completed treatment, we lack information on outcomes of treatment dropouts. Therefore, general daily functioning was examined of former inpatients (n=196) of a psychiatric institution specialized in treatment of youth with severe disruptive externalizing. Method: Regression analyses were used to assess whether completion of treatment could predict general daily functioning at 18 months follow-up. Additionally, the influence of early-onset (i.e., prior to age 12) disruptive behavior, cannabis usage prior to admission and male sex was examined. Results: Treatment completion (versus dropout) was the best predictor for good general daily functioning at follow-up. Early- onset disruptive behavior, cannabis usage prior to admission and male sex, added to the explained variance. Conclusions: Because treatment dropout related to poorer functioning at follow-up, preventing dropout is clinically relevant. One way to achieve
this may be to focus on the reduction and prevention of drug use.
Keywords: Follow-up, Dropout, General daily functioning, Residential adolescent psychiatry, Antisocial behavior
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