@article{ref1,
title="Weapon carrying and psychopathic-like features in a population-based sample of Finnish adolescents",
journal="European child and adolescent psychiatry",
year="2015",
author="Saukkonen, Suvi and Laajasalo, Taina and Jokela, Markus and Kivivuori, Janne and Salmi, Venla and Aronen, Eeva T.",
volume="25",
number="2",
pages="183-191",
abstract="We investigated the prevalence of juvenile weapon carrying and psychosocial and personality-related risk factors for carrying different types of weapons in a nationally representative, population-based sample of Finnish adolescents. Specifically, we aimed to investigate psychopathic-like personality features as a risk factor for weapon carrying. The participants were 15-16-year-old adolescents from the Finnish self-report delinquency study (n = 4855). Four different groups were formed based on self-reported weapon carrying: no weapon carrying, carrying knife, gun or other weapon. The associations between psychosocial factors, psychopathic-like features and weapon carrying were examined with multinomial logistic regression analysis. 9 % of the participants had carried a weapon in the past 12 months. Adolescents with a history of delinquency, victimization and antisocial friends were more likely to carry weapons in general; however, delinquency and victimization were most strongly related to gun carrying, while perceived peer delinquency (antisocial friends) was most strongly related to carrying a knife. Better academic performance was associated with a reduced likelihood of carrying a gun and knife, while feeling secure correlated with a reduced likelihood of gun carrying only. Psychopathic-like features were related to a higher likelihood of weapon carrying, even after adjusting for other risk factors. The findings of the study suggest that adolescents carrying a weapon have a large cluster of problems in their lives, which may vary based on the type of weapon carried. Furthermore, psychopathic-like features strongly relate to a higher risk of carrying a weapon.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1018-8827",
doi="10.1007/s00787-015-0724-2",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00787-015-0724-2"
}