Abstract
Forty-six children admitted to short-term, usually 4–6-week child psychiatric inpatient treatment were evaluated from multiple perspectives on admission, at discharge, and at 5-month, one-year, and 3-year follow-ups. The majority of the patients showed an improvement in functioning over the course of the 3-year follow-up. However, the 3-year stability of parent, teacher and clinical ratings of the child was very high. Furthermore, the majority of children had a high level of symptoms at follow-ups. Conduct problems had the highest stability and predicted the poorest outcome. The results stress the importance of long-term follow-up of children discharged from child psychiatric tertiary sevices. In many of these cases, the problems were persistent chronic problems that require continued monitoring and evaluation over many years. Short-term hospitalization should be seen as a pathway to further assistance rather than a complete form of treatment.
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Sourander, A., Leijala, H. The Clinical Course of Children Treated in a Short-Term Inpatient Programme. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev 33, 75–88 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1016520406736
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1016520406736