NCJ Number
219796
Journal
Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health Volume: 17 Issue: 3 Dated: 2007 Pages: 152-162
Date Published
2007
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This literature review examined whether any epidemiological studies of sentenced prisoners included data on the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) while in prison, and if so, the prevalence of such a condition.
Abstract
Of the 103 potentially relevant studies identified after preliminary screening, only 4 met all the criteria for inclusion in the analysis without having any of the exclusion criteria. For these four studies, PTSD ranged from 4 percent to 21 percent of the sample. Women were disproportionately represented among prisoners with PTSD. All four of the studies indicated that the prevalence of PTSD among sentenced prisoners was higher than its prevalence in the general population. These findings reveal the need for PTSD treatment services for sentenced prisoners. The following literature databases were searched in this review: EMBASE, Medline, PsychInfo, PILOTS, and SIGLE. The Journal of Traumatic Stress was manually searched. Preliminary screening was conducted by reading abstracts of hundreds of papers. Ten exclusion criteria were applied to the studies selected in the preliminary screening. Reference sections of all accessed papers were searched for any additional relevant studies. 2 tables, 112 references, and appended 10-item screening checklist of exclusion criteria