title: [Which characteristics of adolescents with behavioural problems are associated with the completion of residential treatment].
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Many adolescents who have a combination of psychiatric disorders and behavioural problems fail to complete their course of treatment and therefore do not get the treatment they need.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To investigate whether gender and the severity of symptoms at the start of treatment can predict whether patients will complete their course of treatment.
  
  
  METHODS
  By means of questionnaires ( SCL-90, YSR and CBCL) we attempted to find out if the gender and symptoms of 127 male adolescent patients beginning their treatment in a psychiatric institution could ‘predict’ whether the patients would complete their treatment or terminate it prematurely. For the purpose of our research, specific definitions of the terms drop out, push out and treatment success were formulated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The inter rater reliability of the definitions of drop out and treatment success ranged from adequate to good, whereas the reliability of the definition of push out was only moderate.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The questionnaire was not able to predict accurately whether patients would complete their treatment. Apparently, adolescent males whose treatment was predicted to have a more favourable outcome had obtained higher scores on the ( SCL-90) Hostility subscale at the beginning of treatment and more girls than boys were judged to have improved.
authors.affiliation: Lieke.vandenreijen@gmail.com
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: van den Reijen
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nijman
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Orobio de Castro
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schmitz
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001519:Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000628:therapy*; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012114:Residential Treatment; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D012737:Sex Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D016896:Treatment Outcome