TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2015//
TI  - Weapon carrying and psychopathic-like features in a population-based sample of Finnish adolescents
JO  - European child and adolescent psychiatry
A1  - Saukkonen, Suvi
A1  - Laajasalo, Taina
A1  - Jokela, Markus
A1  - Kivivuori, Janne
A1  - Salmi, Venla
A1  - Aronen, Eeva T.
SP  - 183
EP  - 191
VL  - 25
IS  - 2
N2  - 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>
LA  - en
SN  - 1018-8827
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00787-015-0724-2
ID  - ref1
ER  -