TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2000//
TI  - Psychiatric admissions at different levels of the national health care services and male criminality: the Northern Finland 1966 Birth Cohort study
JO  - Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology
A1  - Timonen, M.
A1  - Miettunen, J.
A1  - Hakko, H.
A1  - Järvelin, M. R.
A1  - Veijola, J.
A1  - Kinnunen, J.
A1  - Räsänen, P.
SP  - 198
EP  - 201
VL  - 35
IS  - 5
N2  - BACKGROUND: It has earlier been suggested that one-third of violent offenders are recorded in psychiatric case registers. Our aim was to study whether violent and non-violent offenders differ with respect to admissions to any health care inpatient service due to psychiatric disorders. METHODS: We used a genetically homogeneous, general population database from the Northern Finland 1966 Birth Cohort, together with the Finnish Hospital Discharge Register and national crime registers. RESULTS: We found that one-third of violent and one-fourth of non-violent male offenders had at least one hospital admission due to a psychiatric disorder before the age of 32. Sixty-five violent criminals - 1.2% of all cohort males (n = 5636) - accounted for 14.4% of all psychiatric treatment days. The admission rates among both violent and non-violent male offenders were significantly higher when compared with males with no criminal history. Among violent males, only half (55.5%) of the inpatient hospital days due to psychiatric disorders occurred in psychiatric hospitals. The corresponding percentages for non-violent criminals and non-criminals were 64.9% and 74.1%, respectively. Among the violent offenders, one-third of hospital inpatient days occurred in university hospitals or central hospitals, and only 1.9% of them occurred in a comprehensive community care system. CONCLUSIONS: Violent offenders' admission rates due to a psychiatric diagnosis are high, and they are frequently treated at an inappropriate health care level.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0933-7954
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/
ID  - ref1
ER  -