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Abstract
Despite high prevalence rates, many jails lack validated measures or consistent processes for detecting mental illness. In this study, we examined the utility of the K6, an internationally used brief mental health screening measure within an urban jail. The K6 and several other mental health measures were administered to 515 jailed women. The K6 identified 36% as having a serious mental illness. There was a high concordance with the other measures, particularly when using the highest level of symptom distress (top quartile) as the comparison. These findings are promising, particularly when other mental health screening tools have less success in detecting depression and trauma-related disorders among women.
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Notes
∗Severe symptom levels are those that fell within the top quartile among all respondents.
∗∗Based on symptom severity scale for each disorder.
∗p < .01.
The percent refusal for those residing on the mental health unit was 7.4%, compared to 9.4% for general population inmates.
The county jail currently has three facilities, two of which house women offenders. Generally, women sentenced for one year or less are housed in the longer-term county jail facility, while women pre-conviction (i.e., those awaiting trial for either misdemeanors or felonies) are housed in the shorter-term facility. Because some women in the shorter-term facility will eventually be transferred to prison after sentencing, due to the seriousness of their offenses, security levels in the shorter-term facility tend to be higher on some of the units, when compared with the longer-term facility.
