Clinical Characteristics of Outpatient Adolescents Undergoing Ongoing Psychotherapy in a Greek Tertiary Hospital from June 2016 to December 2019

Abstract

Background: Adolescents with mental disorders often have difficulty engaging in ongoing treatment. Dropout from treatment is common. Aim: This paper aims to explore the clinical characteristics of a cohort of adolescents with mental disorders who were stably and actively undergoing psychotherapy over a relatively long period of time (for at least four months). Method: A purposive single-center cross-sectional cohort survey was conducted from June 2016 to December 2019. The sample of the study (N=50) was recruited from the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry outpatient setting of a large tertiary hospital of Thessaloniki, the second largest city in Greece. An intelligence test (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, WISC III) and a self-report measure of depression (Beck Depression Inventory, BDI II) were used. All the participants underwent a rigorous clinical assessment of their mental health status in both initial and ongoing psychotherapy. The initial diagnosis was reconfirmed during the course of therapy. Mental disorders were defined and diagnosed using the ICD-10 (1992) (International Classification of Diseases). Results: The largest percentage of adolescents (44.9%) were found to suffer from mood (affective) disorders, while 20.4% suffered from neurotic disorders. We also found high prevalence of pessimism (32.7%), reduction of energy (28.6%) and difficulty in concentration (32.7%). A total of 22.4% of adolescents reported sleep disorders. A limited interest in sex was noted, which was in contrast with international and Greek data, where interest and experimentation around sex seems to preoccupy a high percentage of adolescents. Furthermore, sleep disorders, either as a symptom of an underlying disease or as an independent clinical condition, seem to preoccupy adolescents, and this may be a motive for them to seek treatment. Conclusion: For the most part, the findings of this study were consistent with the findings of prior studies; however, previous studies did not exclusively include adolescents engaging in ongoing psychotherapy. As we identified some inconsistencies with prior studies related to interest in sex and sleep disorders, further research is recommended for the investigation of possible correlations between these findings and ongoing psychotherapy engagement rates. Note, however, that the findings in this study are not representative of adolescents in Greece due to the fact that the used sample was not representative.