Epidemiology and treatment of mental health problems in juvenile delinquents

In an effort to establish the comorbidity rates of various mental health problems and juvenile delinquency and to determine the most efficacious treatments for such dually diagnosed youths, over 75 publications were reviewed. Despite a dearth of methodologically sound findings, some tentative conclusions were possible. First, in addition to conduct disorder, several other diagnosable mental disorders appear to occur frequently in the population of juvenile delinquents. These problems include personality, affective, attention deficit hyperactivity, and substance abuse disorders, and mental retardation. Most reported treatment studies were for conduct problems, although there were a few reports of interventions for sexual disorders, substance abuse prevention, and mental retardation, most of which were somewhat successful on a short-term basis. Reasons for the lack of high quality empirical studies of the mental health problems of juvenile delinquents were proposed, and the importance of increasing our knowledge base and improving service delivery for such comorbid disorders was stressed.