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Drug usage as a treat to the stability of treatment outcome

A one-year follow-up study of adolescent psychiatric patients

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Abstract

Objective

To examine the stability of treatment outcome one year after discharge from an inpatient treatment programme for adolescents with severe behavioural problems combined with psychiatric disorders.

Method

Symptom Check List-90 Revised (SCL-90 R) ratings were obtained at admission, discharge and one-year follow-up for 75 patients. Treatment outcome was determined by calculating clinically significant change on the SCL-90 R Global Severity Index (GSI) between admission and discharge. Stability of treatment outcome was determined by comparing the clinically significant changes on the GSI between admission and discharge, and between admission and follow-up.

Results

Compared to baseline, 46.7% of the patients recovered (reliable change was found and their GSI at discharge was below the cutoff point for the functional population), 20% improved (reliable change was found, but the GSI was still above the cutoff point). For the other patients no reliable change was found (12.0%) or they deteriorated (21.3%). At follow-up, compared to the base score, 52.0% recovered, 13.3% improved, 12.0% showed no reliable change, and 22.7% deteriorated. Although for the whole sample no significant change was found between discharge and follow-up, some individual patients continued to improve after discharge, while others deteriorated. Analyses show that drug usage during the follow-up period is a strong predictor for these changes.

Conclusion

The results indicated that the majority of the patients recovered or improved during treatment and this treatment outcome was relatively stable at one-year follow-up. However, in a minority of patients the treatment results deteriorated during the one-year follow-up period. Drug usage turned out to be an important predictor for this deterioration.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Zita Haijer and the members of the research group for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. In particular, we would like to express our gratitude to Marike Bruinsma, for her thorough research activities in the first five years of the research project.

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  1. Poortmolen 121, 2906 RN Capelle aan den IJssel, The Netherlands

    Albert Eduard Boon PhD & Sjoukje Berdina Beike de Boer MA

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  1. Albert Eduard Boon PhD
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  2. Sjoukje Berdina Beike de Boer MA
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Correspondence to Albert Eduard Boon PhD.

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Boon, A.E., de Boer, S.B. Drug usage as a treat to the stability of treatment outcome. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 16, 79–86 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-006-0576-x

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