Risk and Protective Factors as Predictors of Outcome in Adolescents with Psychiatric Disorder and Aggression

• NCJ Number: 192237
• Journal: Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Volume: 41 Issue: 1 Dated: January 2002 Pages: 36-43
• Author(s): J. Eric Vance M.D.; Natasha K. Bowen Ph.D.; Gustavo Fernandez Ph.D.; Shealy Thompson Ph.D.
• Editor(s): Mina K. Dulcan M.D.
• Date Published: January 2002
• Length: 8 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article identifies predictive factors of behavioral outcomes in adolescents with aggression and serious emotional disturbance (SED) in understanding the causes of aggression and appropriate treatment targets for the mental health systems.

Abstract

A challenge to today’s mental health service systems are those children identified with problems of severe aggression and serious emotional disturbance (SED). In this study, an extensive list of risk and protective factors and scores from the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale for Children (BPRS-C) were tested to identify the characteristics at the time of an adolescent’s entry into the North Carolina, Willie M. Program. These characteristics were predictive of high or low behavioral functioning approximately 1 year later. The study hypothesized that psychiatric symptoms would be less predictive of outcomes than risk and protective factors. The study identified predictive factors that represented potential intervention targets in the population of youth with aggression and SED. Three hundred and thirty-seven adolescents from the program for aggressive youths with SED were followed from July 1995 to June 1999 from program entry (T1) until 1-year later (T2). The study recommended that important predictive characteristics of the relative risk and resilience of adolescents with SED would be reliably ascertained by clinicians working in the field using a cross-sectional and retrospective assessment tool. Results indicated that several well-known psychosocial risk and protective factors significantly predicted behavioral outcomes in this study’s group of adolescents. These results suggested that risk and resilience mechanisms continue to moderate outcomes. In addition, the study identified a number of intervention strategies to moderate risk factors, while building protective factors in youths with SED and aggression. Tables and references