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Overview of talk

A look at HM Institution Cornton Vale: a sample of women prisoners Dr. Jennifer Perrin Division of Applied Medicine University of Aberdeen. Overview of talk . Introduction and aims Methods Childhood trauma Personality disorders Psychiatric symptoms

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Overview of talk

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  1. A look at HM Institution Cornton Vale: a sample of women prisonersDr. Jennifer PerrinDivision of Applied MedicineUniversity of Aberdeen

  2. Overview of talk • Introduction and aims • Methods • Childhood trauma • Personality disorders • Psychiatric symptoms • Where can we go from here: an open discussion?

  3. Introduction • Study was commissioned by the Scottish Prison service. • Aim: to examine the prevalence of childhood trauma, personality disorders and psychiatric symptoms among the female prisoners at Cornton Vale. • Why? • To better understand the mental health needs of the prisoners. • Knowledge gained could aid the day-to-day management of the prisoners.

  4. Methods • Prisoners were asked to fill out a survey containing questionnaires which are designed to examine childhood trauma, personality disorders and psychiatric symptoms. • In total 159 women volunteered to complete the survey. • This group included both prisoners on remand and those who have been convicted.

  5. Childhood Trauma • Childhood trauma questionnaire (CTQ) was used. • Self-report questionnaire where you are asked to rate the truth of each statement from never true to very often true. • CTQ covers emotional, physical and sexual abuse as well as emotional and physical neglect.

  6. Trauma in context Compared with a community sample. Compared with a prison sample.

  7. Emotional abuse

  8. CDQ- Take home message • High rates of reported childhood trauma, with 33% reporting a history of severe to extreme sexual abuse. • 33% also reported a history of severe to extreme emotional abuse. • Much higher rates of trauma then a community sample. • In terms of emotional abuse this population was more similar to a psychiatric populations then community samples.

  9. Personality disorders • Current DSM (4th edition) includes 10 different disorders. • Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire PDQ version 4 was used. • 99 true/false questions that produce scores for the 10 different diagnoses. • Score of 50 or greater = increased likelihood of a personality disorder. • Eg. I get into a lot of fights (antisocial)

  10. 37% screened for both BPD and ASPD, while 17% screened for BPD alone and 14% ASPD alone. What do you think of the paranoid result – artifact or real result?

  11. Personality disorders in context Comparison with clinical populations. Comparison with other prison samples.

  12. Personality Disorders take-home message. • A high rate of prisoners scored as likely to have a PD diagnosis with borderline and antisocial being the most prevalent. • Cornton Vale sample is more like a psychiatric inpatient sample in terms of PD prevalence and has higher levels of borderline and antisocial than two other prison samples. • These results should be taken with some caution as the PDQ-4 can overestimate.

  13. Psychiatric Symptoms • The symptom checklist-90 was used as a general measure of psychiatric symptoms. • Self-report questionnaire scored on a five-point scale (0-4) assessing rate of symptom occurrence over the last 7 days. • Subscales include: somatization, obsessive-compulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, psychoticism. • Mean score = Global Severity Index

  14. Symptoms in context

  15. Symptoms take home message • High levels of symptomatology among the Croton Vale sample. • This population is more similar to a psychiatric population than it is to a community one.

  16. Overall results • High level of childhood trauma amongst the women. • These levels resemble a psychiatric population. • More than half of the prisoners fulfilled the criteria for BPD and ASPD (according to the PDQ-4. • SCL-90 indicated that 80% of the women were experiencing considerable distress.

  17. Where can we go from here? • Examine for relationships between trauma, PD and offence related factors. • Eg. Current offence, number of offences, violence. • Role of social factors in the above. • Eg. Education, SES, relationships. • Potential targets for interventions.

  18. Questions to discuss • Would you have used the same measure of personality disorder (PDQ-4)? • What do these results mean to you? (i.e. are you surprised by what was found) • What do you think the next step should be research-wise?

  19. Acknowledgments • Rachel Hooks • Dr. Linda Treviling • Governor and staff of Cornton Vale

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