A Six Year Follow-Up Study of Sixty-Five Adolescent Patients: Predictive Value of Presenting Clinical Picture

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Abstract
Diagnosis of adolescent psychiatric patients is complicated by the absence of history of function in an adult role and by the assumed presence of psychological turmoil, thought to be normal at this age. Information about prognosis, always a useful part of clinical management, is especially important in counselling adolescent patients and their families about the prospects for education, vocation, and marriage.†Patients came from both rural and urban areas of several neighbouring states. Parents or guardians of approximately one-third were teachers, salesmen, or shopkeepers and of another third, skilled labourers or farmers. The remainder were approximately equally divided between the well-to-do at one extreme and unskilled labourers at the other. That this sample provided a wider distribution among social strata than most private hospitals or most public hospitals is borne out by the fact that some patients who were subsequently hospitalized again were treated in private hospitals while others were admitted to public facilities (state hospitals).