A 30-YEAR FOLLOW-UP-STUDY OF A CHILD PSYCHIATRIC CLIENTELE .1. DEMOGRAPHIC DESCRIPTION

A register investigation was carried out as of December 31, 1980, with the aim of giving a broad description of a child psychiatric clientele 30 years after admission to hospital. The material consists of 322 patients ‐ 189 boys (59%) and 133 girls (41%) ‐ who were admitted during the period 1949–1951 to the only 2 child psychiatric departments at that time in Denmark. We succeeded in identifying 93% of the patients. The mean age at the time of analysis was 38.6 years (range 32–46). The material was compared with the age‐related Danish population by marital status, vocational education, and socioeconomic class. A total of 115 patients (36%) had been admitted to an adult psychiatric department, and 50 patients only once. A total of 95 patients (30%) had committed criminal offences and 12 had only committed traffic offences. A total of 60 patients (19%) had obtained disability pensions. During the 30‐year follow‐up period, 19 patients (6%) had died. A statistically significant extra mortality was found only for women. Four patients had committed suicide. By logistic regression analysis, a statistically significant correlation was found between criminal record and admission to psychiatric department and the variables: divorce, no vocational education, and lowest socioeconomic class. About 54% had managed well, judging by the variables employed. Copyright © 1990, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved