Who develops psychiatric disorders among male prisoners

Abstract EN

The aim of this study was to identify the factors associated with developing a new episode of psychiatric disorder during imprisonment among a sample of sentenced male prisoners, excluding those with an established history of problematic drinking and/or drug abuse.

The study was conducted in the central prison, Dubai, United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.).

Socio-demographic data were collected from 142 prisoners.

All were interviewed by a psychiatrist who administered the CIS and the CAGE questionnaires, documented self-reported substance misuse and made a clinical ICD-10 diagnosis when it had been appropriate.

Ten variables were selected for testing their association with developing psychiatric disorders in two groups, one with and without identified psychiatric diagnoses.

Chi-square test was used for categorical variables and test for continuous variables.

Mild mental retardation proved to be the only factor associated with the development of new episodes of psychiatric disorder on imprisonment.

If stressful life events are defined as any set of circumstances that requires changes in the basic life pattern of an individual then imprisonment may be considered highly stressful.

The stress experience depends on the individual’s cognitive appraisal and his perception of his own capacities to cope with the situation.

There is evidence that stress is associated with increased psychological disturbance and disordered behavior.

Moreover, prisoners in particular are a high-risk group for psychiatric disorders.

Although most prisoners are under variable forms of stress, some develop psychiatric disorder while serving a prison sentence while others do not.

The aim of this work is, there fore , to identify the factors which are associated with developing psychiatric disorders during imprisonment i.e.

factors which are suggestive of more vulnerability for suffering psychiatric disorder in prison.

Accordingly, the specific aims of this study were to identify the possible correlates for developing a new episode of psychiatric disorder during imprisonment among a sample of sentenced male prisoners, except for subjects with established history of problematic drinking and/or drug misuse.

The rationale for excluding the latter group was the strong relationship between problematic drinking and/or drug misuse and mental disorder.

We preferred to identify the potential vulnerability correlates in a non-biased sample.