Adult Consequences of Child Psychopathology

Child and adolescent psychopathology is a great burden to individuals, their families, and to society at large. Children and adolescents with behavioral and emotional problems suffer from impairments in several domains of functioning, including difficulties with friendship, self-esteem and school functioning. Parents often suffer from a lack of knowledge about their child’s problems, which keeps them from seeking professional help and which causes persistence of problems, difficulties in school, poor family relations, and concurrent psychopathology. Society is faced with the consequences of school dropout and higher workload, but also with costs associated with mental health care, police and the judicial apparatus. Psychopathology in children not also disturbs children’s functioning, it may also have long lasting consequences into adulthood. For example, difficulties in sustaining intimate relationships, in educational success and in building up a professional career. Longitudinal studies of the developmental course of psychopathology from childhood into adulthood are needed to determine which children are at increased risk of lifetime psychopathology. These children should be given special attention in prevention and interventional programs by mental health care professionals working with children and adolescents. This may reduce long-term continuity of psychopathology

Developmental trajectories of child to adolescent externalizing behavior and adult DSM-IV disorder: results of a 24-year longitudinal study

Objective: Childhood externalizing behavior is found to be relatively persistent. Developmental pathways within types of externalizing behavior have been recognized from childhood to adolescence. We aimed to describe the prediction of adult DSM-IV disorders from developmental trajectories of externalizing behavior over a period of 24 years on a longitudinal multiple birth cohort study of 2,076 children. This has not been examined yet. Methods: Trajectories of the four externalizing behavior types aggression, opposition, property violations, and status violations were determined separately through latent class growth analysis (LCGA) using data of five waves, covering ages 4-18 years. Psychiatric disorders of 1,399 adults were assessed with the CIDI. We used regression analyses to determine the associations between children's trajectories and adults' psychiatric disorders. Results: All externalizing behavior types showed significant associations with disruptive disorder in adulthood. In all antisocial behavior types high-level trajectories showed the highest probability for predicting adult disorders. Particularly the status violations cluster predicted many disorders in adulthood. The trajectories most often predicted disruptive disorders in adulthood, but predicted also anxiety, mood, and substance use disorders. Conclusions: We can conclude that an elevated level of externalizing behavior in childhood has impact on the long-term outcome, regardless of the developmental course of externalizing behavior. Furthermore, different types of externalizing beh

Predicting adult violent delinquency: Gender differences regarding the role of childhood behaviour

Full text op te vragen bij auteurs via link. Adult violent delinquency harms individuals, their families and society at large. Knowledge about childhood predictors of adult delinquency could be helpful in defining at-risk children who will develop into violent adults. This topic is rarely investigated in females. We investigated which behavioural problems in childhood predicted long-term disruptive development in a sample of both males and females. In 1983, behaviour problems were assessed in a community sample of 2076 children; 24 years later, 1335 of these children, who are now adults, reported on their violent delinquency. Girls with conduct problems were at risk of long-term disruptive development. We recommend that health professionals be alert regarding girls with conduct problems, because early identification and treatment of high-risk girls might reduce delinquency in adult life

Predicting individual differences in criminal attitudes from offender characteristics: a study among Dutch prisoners

Criminal Justice: Legitimacy, accountability, and effectivit