Psychosocial profiles of Irish children with conduct disorders, mixed disorders of conduct and emotion and emotional disorders

Abstract

This paper reports on a retrospective archival study. Forty-one conduct disorder cases, 20 cases with mixed disorders of conduct and emotions and 23 emotional disorder cases were compared on demographic, behavioural and contextual variables. The pattern of treatment received by each group and their therapeutic outcomes were also compared. The three groups had similar demographic characteristics but distinctive psychosocial profiles. Conduct disordered cases showed a predominance of covert behaviour problems and came from anomalous family situations with inadequate parental control. They received family therapy and were more likely to drop out of treatment. Mixed disorder cases showed more behaviour problems overall and more overt behaviour problems. They came from families where there was inadequate parental control and anomalous family situations. They received more child focused individual therapy and parent focused therapy than other cases. Emotional disorder cases showed fewer behavioural problems overall and fewer overt behavioural problems in particular. These cases tended to be characterized by familial overinvolvement in the child’s problems. They received family therapy and child focused therapy and showed greater improvement than cases from the other diagnostic groups.