Mental health state of female prisoners
- VernacularTitle:女性服刑人员的心理健康状况
- Author:
Li LI
- Publication Type:Journal Article
- From:
Chinese Journal of Tissue Engineering Research
2006;10(6):168-170
- CountryChina
- Language:Chinese
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Abstract:
BACKGROUND: Mental health is the most important internal resource that individual can depend on and also an important factor which affects the existence and development of individual. But there are few studies on the level and characteristics of mental health of female prisoners during serving a sentence.OBJECTIVE: To investigate the level and characteristics of mental health of the female prisoners in Shandong Province.DESIGN: Retrospective, cross sectional,multi-variable and sampling survey based on female prisoners.SETTING: Department of Technology in Shandong Police College.PARTICIPANTS: The investigation was completed in the Shandong Police College frotm January 2002 to March 2002.Totally 393 female prisoners from the Shandong Female Prison were selected with the grouping-sampling method to give the questionnaire and attend the investigation voluntarily,and the persons with definite mental disease were excluded.METHODS: The mental health items of female prisoners,including 9 factors such as somatization, obsessive-compulsion,sensitivity of human relations, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobia anxiety, paranoid ideation and psychosis,were explored with Symptom Checklist 90(SCL-90), and the judging standard of psychologic obstacle was whether the total scores of positive symptoms were 2 standard deviations more than those of the norm or not.And combined with the archives of the female prisoners and the questionnaire of self-editing item,relative data were collected. The uniform instructional words and the methods of filling in were explained to the female prisoners firstly,and then the answers of the questionnaire were written collectively.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The mental health level and the psychological characteristics of female prisoners.RESULTS: 393 questionnaires were provided.There were 15 questionnaires excluded because more than 5 questions were missed in the paper or responsion consistency deviation appeared obviously after callback.378questionnaires were valid ,and the effective rate was 96.2%. ①The item numbers of positive reaction,total average score,toatal average score of positive symptoms of SCL of the prisoners were higher respectively than those of the norm of general group and reached the most significant level.The psychological problems of different degrees were widespread among them.②There were 372 female prisoners who had positive symptoms, and the detection rate was 98.41% ,which was more than that of positive symptoms in prisoners (40.6%).The significance of difference existed(x2=503.59,P ＜ 0.001).There were 84 persons who had psychologic obstacle in the female prisoners,and the detection rate was 22.2%,which was higher than that of in the general group (10.54%).The significance of difference existed (x2=54.128,P ＜ 0.001). ③The scores of 9 factors of SCL were all higher in the female prisoners than in the adult norm of the country,and reached the most significant degree. It showed that the obvious abnormality existed in the somatization, obsessive-compulsion, sensitivity of human relations, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobia anxiety,paranoid ideation and psychosis of the tested persons, and the ordering of them was sensitivity of human relations ＞hostility ＞obsessive obsessivecompulsion ＞depression ＞somatization ＞anxiety ＞phobia anxiety/paranoid ideation＞psychosis. Among the 9 factors,the average scores of obsessivecompulsion, sensitivity of human relations, depression,and hostility were greater than 2,and the symptomatic reaction of them was already above moderate. ④The detection rates of psychological problem or psychologic obstacle of the factors such as paranoid ideation, hostility, somatization,sensitivity of human relations and anxiety,etc.were higher,which indicated that these were the main psychological deviation contents.CONCLUNSION: Compared with the general group,the total level of mental health of female prisoners is lower, and the detection rate of psychologic obstacle and the degree of symptomatic reaction are obviously higher,and the psychological characteristics such as phobia anxiety, obsessive-compulsion,sensitive-suspiciousness, depression and hostility,etc are outstanding.
